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FII renew buying support; Sensex spurts over 43 points, 2993.36

A favourable sentiment was witnessed on the Bombay Stock Exchange as equities improved further on renewed buying spree by the foreign institutional investors coupled with encouraging response to the Resurgent India Bonds from non-resident Indians.

The FIIs invested heavily on Dr Reddy's and ITC counters, leading brokers said and added that despite a festival mood, market sentiment was good. Encouraging investments made by NRIs especially from the Middle East in RIB issue floated by State Bank of India impacted the market favourably.

Mirroring the trend, the BSE Sensitive Index (30 scrips) opened higher at 2958.78 points, touched day's high of 2996.72 before closing at 2993.36 points as against the previous close of 2950.44 points showing a net gain of 43.52 points.

The broadbased BSE National Index (100 scrips) also rose by 18.92 points to 1339.18 points over yesterday's close of 1320.26 points.

The BSE-200 and Dollex indices settled down at 312.49 and 122.42 points as compared to last trading day's close of 308.05 and 120.73 points, gaining 04.44 and 01.69 points respectively.

The domestic institutions including Unit Trust of India, Life Insurance Corporation of India and General Insurance Corporation also continued their investment in the capital which also aided to upward trend, brokers said.

Among the gainers were Bajaj Auto rose by Rs 13.5 to Rs 647, ITC increased by Rs 12.5 to Rs 623, Tisco had a nominal increase of 50 paise to Rs 95, Reliance Industries hardened by Rs 1.50 to Rs 116 and SBI by Rs 2.5 to Rs 187. However, ACC declined by Rs 4.25 to Rs 1,101.

The total turnover of the screen-based trading increase by Rs 2.11 billion to Rs 10.23 billion involving 40.8 million shares in 123, 929 trades.

ITC registered highest turnover of Rs 2.33 billion followed by Satyam Computers Rs 1.52 billion, Reliance Rs 641.9 million, Pentafour Software Rs 615 million, Zee Telefilms Rs 534.7 million, SBI Rs 455.7 million, Tata Tea Rs 245.8 million, Dr Reddy's Rs 242.7 million, Castrol India Rs 231.9 million, MTNL Rs 212.8 million, Infosys Tech Rs 181.3 million, L&T Rs 153.3 million, Gujarat Ambuja Rs 152.6 million, BHEL Rs 138.2 million and Telco Rs 110.3 million in specified counters.

Good transactions were witnessed at DSQ Software (Rs 69.9 million), Rolta Rs 52.2 million, HCL Infosys (Rs 43.1 million), BFL Software (Rs 40.1 million), Bausch and Lomb (Rs 33 million), Software Solution Rs (Rs 29.7 million), Amara Raja Batteries (Rs 29.5 million), Silverline Industries (Rs 27.4 million and Pentafour Communication (Rs 14.7 million) at B1 counters.

UNI