RBI tries to keep the Re stable, mops up $200m
Mumbai: The Reserve Bank of India is understood to have mopped up close to $200 m in the currency market in the last two days (Monday/Tuesday) in an effort to prevent the Rupee from appreciating against the dollar. The RBI feels that a strong rupee will put Indian exporters at a disadvantage.

While currencies of Indonesia and Korea have weakened by more than 20 percent against the US dollar for over a month now, the Indian rupee rules firm and is beginning to show signs of further strengthening against the dollar.

Forex dealers said intervention by the central bank had kept the rupee from gaining beyond the 46.55 mark since the start of this week.

In the month of February India had a trade surplus of $ 400 m, though export growth had almost halved to 10.5 per cent in February compared to 20 per cent during the previous months of 2000-01, a 15 per cent decline in imports thus led to a surplus situation.

Foreign funds also continued to invest in Indian bonds and equities despite scandals that have rocked the stock markets. During the month of April, they invested $115.2 million in Indian debt and equities, taking their total investments so far in the calendar year to $1.84 billion.
This compares with net investments of $1.55 billion for the whole of calendar year 2000.
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BSE index slides 86 pts
Mumbai: Reliance Industries (RIL) and Zee Telefilms, were the leaders among fresh sell-offs in equities that took a heavy toll on the Sensex, which closed at a 23-month low of 3458.39 points, a fall of 86 points on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on Tuesday.

Domestic and Foreign institutional investors took to selling in a bid to wind up positions. This was on the back of reports that Ketan Parekh had admitted before the CBI to receiving funds from Zee group companies and HFCL.

RIL stock was sold heavily after it was downgraded by a leading foreign fund from ‘buy’ to ‘underperformer’ a little ahead of release of its annual results.

This induced fresh fears among the broking fraternity and the already battered K-10 counters again fell to selling pressures.

The Sensex opened slightly down at 3542.44 points and later dropped to the day’s low of 3422.11 points before closing at 3458.39 points, against Monday’s close of 3544.08 points, a fall of 85.69 points or 2.42 per cent.

Though Dow Jones and the Nasdaq showed moderate gains last night, global news also remained discouraging with analysts’ downgrade of Intel and Texas Instruments.

Cement shares also joined the selling spree and closed lower. ACC was down by Rs 2.90 to close at Rs.132. L&T went down by Rs 4.50 to close at Rs 2,259 and Grasim Industries, after dipping to Rs 280.30, rebound to close at Rs 289.90.
Other index related shares which closed lower were Ranbaxy Lab, BSES, Telco, Tisco, Tata tea, MTNL, Sterlite Industries, Apollo Tyres and escorts on selling pressure from all sides.
ITC, HLL and SBI were better on retail investors buying.
In the technology segment, Satyam Computer, Infosys, Aptech, DSQ Software, Digital Equipment, NIIT, Wipro, Rolta India, Global Tele, Shyam Tele, SSi and Pentamedia Graphics were down on FIIs selling.
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