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Equities gain as investors rediscover buying; Nifty 838.30

Equities gained marginally on good buying support by bull operators and common investors, on the opening day of the current settlement, on the National Stock Exchange today.

Reflecting the uptrend, the S&P CNX Nifty moved up by 5.85 points to 838.30 points as against 832.45 points of the previous day.

The CNX Nifty Junior rose by 11.80 points to 1445.85 points from 1434.05 points while the S&P CNX Defty edged up by 1.45 points to 666.95 points from 665.50 points.

The S&P CNX 500 index improved by 5.99 points to 579.01 points from 573.02 points and the CNX Midcap 200 index improved by 6.91 points to 508.64 points from 501.73 points of the previous day.

The total turnover in 180,867 trades, involving 55.08 million shares was Rs 116.76 billion and the debenture traded value was Rs 786,000.

About 545 securities gained, 333 declined and 86 remained unchanged.43 scrips hit their price bands today.

Foreign institutional investors today unloaded heavily for Rs 315.41 million against their nominal investment of Rs 66.06 million, showing an outflow of foreign funds worth Rs 249.34 million from the market. Domestic institutions and mutual funds were also the net sellers today to the tune of Rs 61.18 million.

ITC registered the highest turnover of Rs 2.28 billion, followed by Reliance (1.66 billion), Satyam Computers (Rs 1.47 billion), SBI (Rs 933.5 million), Pentafour Software (Rs 731.1 million), Zee Telefilms (Rs 381.2 million), Hindustan Lever (Rs 273.2 million), Telco (Rs 267.3 million), Tata Tea (Rs 260.1 million), Infosys Tech (Rs 259.1 million), MTNL (Rs 245.9 million), Colgate (Rs 228.2 million) and Dr Reddy's (Rs 216 million).

The other counters which witnessed hectic activity were: ACC (Rs 187.6 million), BHEL (Rs 142.7 million), Castrol (Rs 118.2 million), Tisco (Rs 114.4 million), L&T (Rs 111.9 million), HCL-HP (Rs 95.8 million), Bajaj Auto (Rs 90.4 million), Rolta (Rs 90.1 million), NIIT (Rs 86.6 million), Silverline (Rs 80.4 million), Gujarat Ambuja Cement (Rs 73.1 million) and German Remedies (Rs 60.5 million).

Telco recorded the day's highest gain of 5.83 per cent to Rs 138.90, followed by Ashok Leyland 4.93 per cent to Rs 27.65, BHEL 4.82 per cent to Rs 213.05, TVS Suzuki 4.30 per cent to Rs 427.35 and Mahindra and Mahindra 3.22 per cent to Rs 152.05.

BPCL topped the losers list with 4.52 per cent decline to Rs 235.45, followed by Reliance 4.33 per cent to Rs 109.50, Thermax 3.30 per cent to Rs 180.25, Colgate 2.70 per cent to 199.75 and Cochin Refineries 1.52 per cent to Rs 223.40.

The wholesale debt market of NSE witnessed trades worth Rs 5.41 billion. The 11.55 per cent government loan maturing in 2001 was traded for Rs 1.40 billion at a weighted yield of 11.46 per cent. The 11.95 per cent government stock maturing in 2004 was traded for Rs 1 billion at a weighted yield of 11.88 per cent. Commercial paper of Eicher, maturing on Setpember 28, 1998 was traded for Rs 50 million at an yield of nine per cent. Two repo trades worth Rs 500 million were traded at a rate of 7.75 per cent for a repo term of 10 days. The turnover in debenture was Rs 51.32 million.

UNI