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Sensex nets a handsome gain

Encouraged by Reliance Industries Limited's good performance, select pivotals staged smart recovery on the Bombay Stock Exchange following moderate buying support from institutional investors and local as well as upcountry operators.

The market opened on a firm note and further firmed up by mid-session. It could not, however, sustain the bullish trend in the later part of the session, and fell following speculative selling pressure. But it recovered at the fag end of the session.

Reflecting the trend, the BSE sensitive index opened at 4,098.17, touched the day's high of 4,138, fell sharply to touch the day's low of 4,059.68 and finally ended at 4,082.83 points, netting a handsome gain of 31.85 points as against the previous close of 4,050.98 points.

The broad-based BSE-100 index recovered by 13.42 points to 1,794.06 as against the previous close of 1780.64.

The BSE-200 and dollex indices also gained by 3.13 and 1.32 points to 405.41 and 169.98 points as against the previous close of 402.28 and 168.66 points respectively.

Leading BSE brokers said foreign institutional investors stayed away from the market; the locals made some buying in select scrips.

The Unit Trust of India reportedly sold a large quantity of shares at fundamentally strong counters.

In the absence of major institutional investors, the market witnessed limited business volume. Barring the Reliance's, no counter attracted high business volume.

RIL posted a sales of Rs 134.04 billion. The directors of the company have recommended a dividend of 35 per cent per annum (70 per cent adjusted for bonus as against 65 per cent for previous year) for the year constituting a dividend payout of Rs 3.27 billion. The company's operating profit also registered a handsome increase of 48 per cent to Rs 28.87 billion as against Rs 19.48 billion. The net profit registered an increase of 25 per cent to Rs 16.53 billion from the previous Rs 13.23 billion.

The total turnover on the BSE fell sharply to Rs 9.93 billion from Friday's Rs 15.38 billion.

Reliance topped the list of turnover by registering Rs 2.41 billion, followed by ITC (Rs 745.8 million), State Bank of India (Rs 664.3 million), Satyam Comp (Rs 422.7 million), Tata Tea (Rs 392.8 million), Castrol Ind (Rs 347.2 million), ACC (Rs 318.2 million), Pentafours (Rs 297.6 million), Tisco (Rs 241.6 million), BPL Ltd (Rs 189.9 million), ICICI Ltd (Rs 160.7 million), Corporation (Rs 141.6 million), Dr Reddy (Rs 139.5 million), Zee telefilm (Rs 139.2 million) and Sterlite (Rs 137.1 million).

Hectic activity was witnessed in the B1 group at selected counters. It was led by Reliance Pet (Rs 30.5 million), B G L Software (Rs 10 million), Him Fut Comm (20.5 million), H C L Infosys (Rs 18.2 million), Bausch and Lobm (Rs 12.3 million), Silverline (Rs 12.2 million), Max India (Rs 6.9 million), Federal Bank (Rs 6.8 million), Wipro (Rs 6.3 million), Software (Rs 6.2 million), Folta Ind (Rs 6.2 million), Aptech Ltd (Rs 6.1 million), IPCA Labs (Rs 5.7 million), Apollo Hosp (Rs 5.5 million) and Hind Oil Exp (Rs 5.2 million).

UNI