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Sensex gains over six points

Pivotals improved marginally on nominal buying support on blue chips like ITC and MTNL, while equity prices remained constant on lack of fresh demand on the Bombay Stock Exchange today.

Mirroring the uptrend, the BSE sensitive index (30 scrips) opened lower to 3107.04 points, due to renewed buying support at index-based counters by foreign institutional investors. The Sensex rose to 3144.06 points, before closing at 3119.54 points, a net gain of 6.69 points as against the previous close of 3112.95 points.

The broadbased BSE national index remained nearly steady at 1379.05 points over the previous close of 1378.19 points improving nominally by 0.86 points. The BSE-200 and dollex indices settled down at 317.26 and 124.14 points as compared to last trading day's close of 316.93 and 124.01 points respectively.

The FIIs bought a marginal number of ITC and MTNL shares, leading brokers said. Domestic institutions, mainly Unit Trust of India and Life Insurance Corporation of India, purchased a large number of shares from both specified and non-specified counters.

UTI received Rs 31 billion from its oldest Unit-64 scheme last month, brokers said. The downfall in the Asian capital market and firing on the Line of Control affected investor sentiment, brokers said.

The total turnover on the screen-based trading system was Rs 7.26 billion, involving 27.2 million shares in 93,217 trades and a maximum number of 2,072 active users.

ITC registered highest turnover of Rs 1.91 billion, followed by Satyam Comp (Rs 915.9 million), Zee Telefilm (Rs 578.2 million), Pentafour S (Rs 464.9 million), Tata Tea (Rs 394.2 million), SBI (Rs 314.5 million), RIL (Rs 252.9 million), L and T (Rs 243.2 million), ACC (Rs 200.1 million), MTNL (Rs 142.3 million), Hind Lever (Rs 113 million), Telco (Rs 103.6 million), BHEL (Rs 101 million), Castrol India (Rs 99.7 million) and Tisco (Rs 97.7 million) in specified counters.

A good transaction was observed at Coats Vi (Rs 21.2 million), BFL Software (Rs 20.4 million), Bata India (Rs 13.3 million), Silverline I (Rs 11.3 million), Wipro (Rs 10.3 million), HCL Infosystems (Rs 9.5 million), Hoech Mar Ro (Rs 8.4 million), Software Sol (Rs 8.3 million) and Amara Raja B (Rs 5.2 million) on the 'B1' counters.

UNI