COMMENTARY
INTERVIEWS
SPECIALS
CHAT
ARCHIVES

Sensex up 23.97 points

Equity prices opened higher on hectic buying support from foreign institutional investors and local institutions on the opening day of settlement. Due to profit booking at higher level by the bear operators the share prices crashed at the fag end of the day, leading brokers said.

Mirroring the uptrend, the BSE Sensitive index opened higher at 4217.75 points, touched day's high of 4286.84 point before closing at 4210.73 points, showing a net gain of 23.97 points as compared to previous close of 4186.76 points.

A good transaction was witnessed at the non-specified counters as the BSE National index also gained by 14.37 points to 1854.42 points over the last working day's close of 1840.05 points.

The BSE-200 and Dollex indices increased by 04.04 and 01.74 points to 421.11 and 176.60 points as compared to the previous close of 417.07 and 174.86 points respectively. The marketmen said the uncertain political situation prevailed at the Centre following the AIADMK leader Jayalalitha's statement demanding to drop certain ministers, who have been chargesheeted in the court.

The domestic institutional investors coupled with bull operators were selling side counter shares including Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited, Tata Chemical, Sesa Goa and other shares, brokers added.

The total turnover on the screen-based trading system was Rs 14.8 billion involving 80.2 million shares in 187,529 trades. Out of 6,997 scrips, a total number of 2261 scrips were traded.

Market leader Reliance Industries Limited registered the highest volume of Rs 1.9 billion followed ITC Rs 1.5 million, Castrol India Rs 1.5 billion, SBI Rs 606.6 million, Hind Lever Rs 462.3 million, Tata Tea Rs 387.8 million, BHEL Rs 381.8 million, Hindalco Rs 338.6 million, ICICI Rs 336.5 million, Tata Chem Rs 289.6 million, ACC Rs 277.5 million Tisco Rs 273.7 million, Sterlite Rs 273.4 million, Infosys Tech Rs 249.1 million, and Dig Equip Rs 216.7 million in the specified counters.

Good transactions were observed at BFL Softwar (Rs 23.5 million), Him Fut Comm (Rs 54 million), Cipla (Rs 30.8 million), Silver Line (Rs 29.2 million), Aptech (Rs 26.5 million), Bank of Punjab (Rs 22.3 million), Reliance Pet (Rs 22.1 million), Bausch and Lomb (Rs 21.8 million), Videsh Sanch (Rs 21.8 million) and Max India Limited (Rs 20.3 million) at 'B1' counters.

UNI