7:30AM NY-6:30PM Mumbai Sensex finishes lower on selling pressure in late trading.

The Sensex on BSE ended Monday 74.98 points, or 0.51%, lower at 14,495.77.

The market-breadth turned negative in late session. As 1,182 stocks advanced, 1,388 declined and 84 were unchanged. Of the 30 stocks in the Sensex, 10 advanced, while all the rest declined. The turnover on BSE was Rs 3,745 crore, compared with Rs 4,709 crore on Friday. On NSE, the turnover was Rs 8,543 crore, lower than Rs 9,872 crore on Friday.

Economic news

Indian companies reported the best net earnings results in fiscal 2007 in three years on mostly higher sales. Almost 1,700 companies have reported their results so far with an earnings increase of 47% over the same period a year earlier.

The President of Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is visiting India to strengthen and expand economic ties. Two nations are working to expand economic relationship and have formed a common position on major global issues, as part of the G20 group of developing countries.

Trading highlights

Reliance Capital was the most-active stock with a turnover of Rs 143.80 crore followed by MIC Electronics and Indiabulls Real.

Advancers

Following robust global copper prices, Hindalco rallied to a high of Rs 156 also on takeover specualtion. The stock eventually pared gains and finished 4% higher at Rs 147. Hindalco is holding talks with Sterlite Industries to offer separate bids for Alcan of Canada.

SBI and ITC surged 2% each to Rs 1,407 and Rs 165, respectively. SBI rallied on a likely government decision to buy from RBI 59.7% stake of the Reserve Bank in SBI in a deal worth Rs 40,000 crore.

Other banks also advanced in sympathy. ICICI Bank finished 0.6% higher at Rs 933 and HDFC bank ended over 1% higher at Rs 1,165. NTPC and Dr.Reddy''s gained 1% each at Rs 160 and Rs 655, respectively.

Decliners

Tata Motors lost nearly 5% to Rs 711.The company announced that May month sales were down 4% to 42,558 units and commercial vehicle sales dipped to 20,675 units in May 2007 from 21,903 units in May 2006. Passenger vehicle sales declined 3% at 17,580 units in May 2007. Grasim lost 3.2% to Rs 2,440 and BHEL shed 3% to Rs 1,372.

IT stocks dipped on the sustained rupee appreciation. Satyam lost 2.3% to Rs 467, TCS was down 1.2% to Rs 1,204 and Infosys was off 1% to Rs 1,916. Index heavy Reliance Industries lost 0.6% to Rs 1,750.


6:30AM European markets are higher Monday on Segro and Vodafone.

European markets are higher on Monday. By mid-day, the German DAX Xetra traded up 0.2% at 8,005.18, a high not reached since March 2000, the French CAC-40 index lost 0.2% at 6,158.41 and the U.K. FTSE 100 index added 0.1% at 6,684.20.

Advancers

U.K. real estate investment company Segro, known before as Slough Estates, supported the U.K. index with a 1.1% share increase, after it said that it is selling Slough Estates USA, a life sciences real estate business, to Health Care Property Investors.