COMMENTARY
INTERVIEWS
SPECIALS
CHAT
ARCHIVES

Indian FIs help push Sensex up 16 points; 2884.59

The market witnessed small recovery on the Bombay Stock Exchange following heavy buying support by leading domestic financial institutional investors coupled with short-covering by operators in the heavy-weighted scrips today.

The foreign institutional investors continued to be sellers, but the domestic FIs like UTI, LIC and GIC made considerable buying in the index-based scrips, marketmen said.

The reversed picture in the world markets including Japanese yen's recovery against US dollar and uptrend in stock markets had little impact on the market, a leading BSE broker said, but he attributed the small recovery to the ''short covering and heavy buying by domestic players''.

The finance minister's reaction to the Japanese yen's recovery that ''worst is over and the yen's gain will have a beneficial impact on the rupee'' also encouraged marketmen, brokers said.

Mirroring the trend, the 30-scrip BSE Sensitive Index opened at 2885.76, surpassing the psychological barrier of 2800. It touched the day's high of 2919.51, fell down to touch the day's low of 2838.99 points and finally ended at 2884.59 points, showing a net gain of 16.60 points against the previous close of 2867.99 points.

The FIIs sold MTNL, Reliance, Hindustan Lever, Colgate, Gujarat Ambuja and L&T.

According to brokers, FIIs sold shares worth Rs 2 million in Reliance.

The broad-based BSE-100 index gained by 7.27 points to 1293 points against the previous close of 1286.22 points.

The BSE-200 and Dollex indices also registered small gains of 1.32 and 0.08 points against to 300.54 and 115.24 against the previous close of 299.22 and 115.16 points.

Total turnover on the BOLT network of the BSE declined to Rs 9.33 billion from Rs 10.54 billion.

Tobacco giant ITC recorded highest business volume of Rs 1.90 billion followed by Satyam Computer Rs 1.36 billion, Reliance Rs 1.05 billion.

Other actively traded scrips were Zee Telefilm Rs 554.5 million, Pentafour Software Rs 528.9 million, Tata Tea Rs 280.9 million, MTNL Rs 217 million, Infosys Tech Rs 215.9 million, Telco Rs 208.7 million, Dr Reddy's Rs 180.9 million, BHEL Rs 132.8 million, Hindustan Lever Rs 129 million, ACC Rs 120.9 million and Castrol India Rs 103.7 million.

Among the top ten companies, the market leader ITC posted a gain of Rs 10.75 to Rs 584.75, Satyam Computer gained smartly by Rs 30.50 to Rs 486.25, Reliance lost by Rs 4.70 to Rs 110.40, SBI held steady at Rs 184.10, Zee telefilms gained by Rs 10.50 to Rs 284.10, Pentafour Software by Rs 11.50 to Rs 608.75, Tata Tea up by Rs 3 to Rs 279.90. MTNL gained by Rs 1.40 to Rs 176.70, Infosy Tech increased by Rs 43.75 to Rs 2533.75, Telco up by Rs 9 to Rs 141.50, Dr Reddy's dropped by Rs 2.20 to Rs 485, BHEL gained by Rs 33.50 to Rs 239.10, Hindustan Lever by 1.50 to Rs 1581.25 and ACC by Rs 33 to Rs 1,115.

UNI