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Sensex falls 37.85 points

Stock prices drifted lower on the Bombay Stock Exchange on Tuesday following selling pressure from foreign institutional investors and speculators coupled with profit booking at the heavy-weighted counters.

Marketmen who have built up position before the announcement of Reserve Bank of India's credit policy, sold heavily at some leading counters, resulting into a sharp decline of about 38 points in the BSE Sensex during the course of day, marketmen said.

''The half-yearly credit policy is very good, but it will not have an immediate impact on the market,'' leading BSE broker said.

''Most of the people were aware about the RBI's credit policy, through media reports indicating several changes in view of continuance of liberalisation of economic policies, and almost all came true,'' said another broker.

Reflecting the trend, the BSE Sensex opened on a higher note at 4157.69, touched the day's high of 4166.14 points, declined to the day's low of 4103.86, and later closed at 4116.99, showing a net loss of 37.85 points over the previous close of 4154.84 points.

Similarly, the broadbased BSE-100 Index drifted lower by 17.88 points to 1772.60 points as against the previous close of 1790.48 points.

The BSE-200 and Dollex Indices closed lower by 3.70 and 1.81 points to 396.67 and 182.33 points over the previous close of 400.37 and 184.14 points respectively.

The total turnover reported during the day was Rs 11 billion.

Market leader Reliance Industries Limited topped the list of turnovers by registering highest turnover of Rs 3.6 billion. Company circles reportedly made heavy purchases at the Reliance counter, marketmen said.

Among others, ITC registered a turnover of Rs 2.5 billion, followed by SBI Rs 1.9 billion, Tata Tea Rs 545.2 million, Castrol India Rs 311.7 million and TISCO Rs 266.4 million.

Hectic activity was witnessed at the other counters like ICICI Rs 174.3 million, MTNL Rs 156.7 million, Bajaj Auto Rs 132.6 million, TELCO Rs 120.8 million, ACC Rs 116.5 million, Hind Lever Rs 92.8 million, Colgate Rs 92.3 million, BHEL Rs 65.5 million, Rel Cap Rs 55 million.

The scrips in the limelight in the B1 group were ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Bank of India, Lakshmi Mach, Satyam Comp, Kin Hon, Tata Infotec, Rel pet, Aptech, LIC Fin, Software Sol, Wipro, Infosys Tech, Marico Indus and LML.

UNI