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Sensex keeps pace with rupee's ascent; 2950.44

Select equities improved further on speculative buying spree coupled with nominal support by the domestic institutions on opening day of settlement at the Bombay Stock Exchange today.

The appreciation of Indian rupee against the US dollar and continuous support by the institutions changed the market sentiment, which moved gradually up, leading brokers said and added that the market players, foreign institutional investors, adopted an attitude of wait-and-watch.

Domestic institutions -- Unit Trust of India, Life Insurance Corporation of India and General Insurance Corporation of India -- bought considerable amount of index-based shares like BHEL, M&M, SBI, brokers added.

Mirroring the upswing, the BSE Sensitive Index (30 scrips) opened at 2928.08 points, rose further to 2958.45, declined to 2899.67 points, before closing at 2950.44 points, showing a net gain of 27.83 points as against the previous close of 2922.61 points.

The broadbased BSE National Index (100 scrips) also finished higher at 1320.26 points over the last trading day's close of 1308 points, gaining 11.44 points.

The BSE-200 and Dollex indices closed at 308.05 and 120.73 points as compared to previous close of 304.75 and 119.19 points, showing a net gain of 03.30 and 00.54 points respectively.

The total turnover on the screen-based trading was Rs 8.12 billion involving 3.12 points in 95,172 trades.

ITC registered highest turnover of Rs 2.18 billion followed by Satyam Computers Rs 1.41 billion, Reliance Rs 545.1 million, SBI Rs 542.6 million, Pentafour Software Rs 527.1 million, Zee Telefilms Rs 450.4 million, Tata Tea Rs 187.5 million, Telco Rs 114.8 million, Infosys Tech Rs 103.7 million, ACC Rs 99.4 million, BHEL Rs 90 million, L&T Rs 85.5 million, Glaxo India Rs 80 million, Hindustan Lever Rs 70.5 million, Smithkline Pharma Rs 63.5 million in specified counters.

A good transaction was observed at Rolta (Rs 30.9 million), HCL Infosys (Rs 27.1 million), Pentafour Communications (Rs 19.5 million), Leading Edge (Rs 17.4 million), Silverline Industries (Rs 13.8 million), BFL Software Rs 13.2 million, Amara Raja Batteries Rs 13.2 million, DSQ Software Rs 12.1 million, Bausch and Lomb Rs 10 million, Hoechst Agro Rs 7.2 million, Mastek Rs 7.2 million and Tata Elxsi Rs 6.8 million at B1 counters.

UNI