The Hindu Business Line : Volumes tumble as dull trend continues

THE overall lacklustre trading environment prevalent in the last few days was extended to Thursday's trading as well. While the key market indices managed to eke out nominal gains in the past three days, they closed on a weak note Thursday.

The BSE Sensex closed 19.11 points lower at 4944.64. The S&P CNX Nifty ended the day at 1544.75, down 3.55 points over the previous day's close.

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Reflective of the lacklustre trading environment, the total business volume dropped to Rs 1,463.23 crore on the BSE from Rs 1,715.39 crore recorded the previous day.

The weakness in Hindustan Lever, ICICI Bank and Reliance Industries dragged down the indices. The share price of Hindustan Lever dropped by Rs 3.75 to Rs 129.80. The ICICI Bank stock dropped by Rs 5 to Rs 267.50. Close to 2.5 lakh shares of ICICI Bank were traded on Thursday as opposed to 3.3 lakh shares recorded the previous day.

Infosys Technologies and Hindustan Petroleum were the top gainers among the stocks that constitute the index. The share price of Hindustan Petroleum increased by Rs 15.7 to Rs 357.50. Another oil refinery major BPCL too recorded a rise in value on Thursday.

Reports that the software giant Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) would file the prospectus for its initial public offer within a couple of days mark the key development of the day. By virtue of the stake held in TCS, the share price of Tata Chemicals and Tata Investment gained in value on Thursday.

The share price of Tata Chemicals shot up by 4.4 per cent to Rs 136.2. Trading volumes jumped to 3.9 lakh shares from 3.3 lakh shares recorded the previous day. In the case of Tata Investment, the spurt in share price was even more pronounced by 7 per cent. The stock closed at Rs186. Trading volumes rose to 21,795 shares from 17,155 shares. As of March 2003, Tata Investment held about 2,939 shares in TCS.

The share price of Tube Investments increased by 14 per cent to Rs 265.70. Trading volumes spurted to 71,404 shares from 16,215 shares recorded the previous day. The decision to issue bonus shares in the ratio of 1:1 appears to have triggered market interest towards the stock.

A sharp pick-up in market activity was evident in stocks such as Aftek Infosys, Jyoti Structures, Glenmark Pharma and Revati Equipments. The heightened activity was complemented by a sharp rise in share price as well.

From 3,807 shares of Jyoti Structures traded on Wednesday, trading volumes jumped to 30,010 shares on Thursday.

LIC Housing Finance was another stock to have bucked the overall market trend. It closed at Rs 147.20, up Rs 6.10 from the previous day's close of Rs 141.10.

Trading volumes scaled up to 2.89 lakh shares from 10,336 shares recorded the day before.

Along with ICICI Bank, a weak trend in other key banking stocks was one of the striking features of Thursday's trading. The list of losers from the banking sector includes Canara Bank, Punjab National Bank and Oriental Bank. After having registered a steady uptrend last week, the banking stocks have turned weak more recently.

The share price of Canara Bank dropped by 2.8 per cent to Rs 127.65. Close to 9.4 lakh shares were traded during the day as opposed to 8 lakh shares recorded the previous day.

The drop in share price was much sharper in the case of Oriental Bank. It recorded a 5-per cent drop before closing at Rs 231.9. Trading volumes ebbed to 3.86 lakh shares from 5.46 lakh shares recorded on Wednesday.

Bharat Earth Movers, BHEL, Siemens and Asian Paints were the other prominent losers of the day. The share price of Asian Paints dropped by Rs 7 to close at Rs 289.65. Trading volumes at 2,941 shares did not display any significant change in relation to 3,026 shares recorded the previous day.