Sensex on a downward tailspin
Mumbai: Prompted by the revenue warning put out by IT bellweather Infosys Technologies, the technology stocks took the BSE sensex into a downward tailspin for the fourth day in a row, to close with a huge loss of 142 points at 3,184 points, the lowest in the past 26 months.

Opening the day at 3,254.52 points, the sensex touched an intra-day low of 3,120.13 points before closing at 3,184 points against Wednesday’s close of 3,326 points, a fall of 142 points.

At the NSE, the S&P CNX Nifty closed the day at 1,026.20 points against Wednesday’s close of 1,066.80 points, a loss of 40.6 points.

With this drop the sensex has, in a matter of just 14 months, eroded investor wealth by a massive Rs 200,000 crore. According to leading market operators, the retail investors have panicked and are pulling out fast from the markets. One such operator said, "Everybody is in a mood to get out of equities and put money in tax-free bonds."

The highlight for the day were cement stocks, which went up on rumours that cement producers are colluding to restrict production in order to raise the prices.

In Thursday’s trading, major losers continued to be New Economy stocks such as Infosys, Wipro, Zee Telefilms and Satyam Computers.
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VSNL now under Sebi glare
New Delhi: Prompted by the department of disinvestment, the capital markets regulator, Securities and Exchanges Board of India (Sebi) has initiated a probe into alleged price rigging of VSNL stock.

The department of disinvestment strongly believes that there is a concerted operation to hammer down the VSNL price on the eve of the disinvestment bidding process that is to shortly begin. The department believes that this hammering may have been done at the behest of parties who have interests in the VSNL bidding.
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