COMMENTARY
INTERVIEWS
SPECIALS
CHAT
ARCHIVES

Stocks review: Another wonderful week

Mirroring the upward trend, the BSE Sensitive index (30 scrips) rose further by 68.47 points to 4186.76 points as compared to previous week's close of 4118.29 points.

The BSE National index (100 scrips) finished at 1840.05 points over the previous week's close of 1806.18 points gaining 33.87 points. The BSE-200 and Dollex indices improved by 10.39 and 3.09 points to 417.07 and 174.86 points as compared to previous week's close of 406.68 and 170.17 points respectively.

However, the volume of business on the screen-based trading system during the week declined drastically by Rs 13.4 billion to Rs 52 billion as against the previous week's total turnover of Rs 65.4 billion.

At the beginning of the week, equity prices eased moderately, disheartened by the higher than expected badla rate of 2.5 per cent to 5.5 per cent on turn of account. Operators executed fresh sale in line with squaring off business on the NSE, which had the last day of the current settlement on Monday due to the national holiday on Tuesday on account of Ambedkar Jayanti.

During the week, Lakme announced 600 per cent dividend for its shareholder for the last financial year. Commerce Minister Ramakrishna Hegde announced his maiden export and import policy on Monday and shifted 340 items from the restricted list to open general licence and kept the target of 20 per cent growth in export during the current financial year.

This changed the sentiment of investors, particularly FIIs, which began buying heavily in the software counters throughout the week.

The BSE governing board authorities have sent a showcause notice to Nestle for not informing it about the resignation of Nestle managing director D Ardheshir.

The Housing and Development Finance Corporation of India has posted a growth rate of 50 per cent in its business volume during the last year. The company has decided to increase the units of sale of housing at the all-India level, says Deepak Satwalkar, managing director of HDFC.

The BSE authorities have also decided to shift 50 more scrips to specified groups to boost trading volumes. This put the total number of scrips at 200.

The Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India has reduced the prime lending rate by 50 basic points.

Share prices at the National Stocks Exchange also gained moderately on buying support from bull operators and general operators.

The NSE-50 (Nifty) index finished at 1210.00 points as against the previous week's close of 1192.40 points, showing a net gain of 17.60 points. The Dollar NSE-50 (Defty) index improved by 13.25 points to 1056.45 points over the previous week's close of 1043.20 points.

The Midcap index shot up by 59.85 points to 1641.20 points as compared to last week's close of 1581.35 points. However, the total turnover on the NSE crashed by Rs 14.1 billion to Rs 61.4 billion as against the previous total turnover of Rs 75.5 billion.

UNI