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Prices defy Tuesday logic; pivotals firm up; Nifty up eight points, 853.00

Pivotals firmed up further on heavy buying support from foreign institutional investors on the last day of weekly settlement day at the National Stock Exchange today. (Of late, the trend has been that prices usually decline on Tuesday, as brokers cover their positions by selling).

Mirroring the bullish phase, the S&P CNX Nifty opened at 844.95 points, touched the day's high of 853.85 points, low of 840.00 and finally ended at 853 points, showing a net gain of 7.85 points from the previous close of 845.15 points. CNX Nifty Junior Index closed higher by 5.90 points to 1431.80 as against the previous close of 1425.90 points.

S&P CNX Defty advanced by 6.50 points to 694.30 points from the previous close of 687.80 points. S&P CNX-500 and CNX Midcap-200 gained by 3.35 and 1.49 points to 581.79 and 519.35 points as against the previous close of 578.44 and 517.86 points respectively.

Total turnover on the NSE reported during the day was Rs 13.88 billion from trading in 57.74 million shares in 199,913 trades. Debentures traded were valued at Rs 5.56 million.

Nearly 490 scrips gained, 504 declined and 117 remain unchanged while 19 securities hit their price bands today.

Zee Telefilms topped the list of turnover by registering highest turnover of Rs 1.97 billion, followed by Pentafour Software Rs 1.70 billion, ITC Rs 1.48 billion, Satyam Computers Rs 1.44 billion and SBI Rs 734.5 million.

Other actively traded scrips were: Reliance (Rs 624.9 million), Telco (Rs 524.2 million), ACC (Rs 523.3 million), Castrol (Rs 404.9 million), Tisco (Rs 345.8 million), Glaxo (Rs 314.8 million), HCL-HP (Rs 248.1 million), Silverline (Rs 247.4 million), MTNL (Rs 238.3 million), Dr Reddy's (Rs 222 million), Infosys Technologies (Rs 216.2 million), Square D Software (Rs 149.9 million), Tata Tea (Rs 141.7 million), Ranbaxy (Rs 119.7 million), BFL Software (Rs 100.5 million), NIIT (Rs 100.5 million), Raymond (Rs 93.7 million), ABB (Rs 86.9 million) and Software Solution Integrated (Rs 83.6 million).

Top five S&P CNX Nifty gainers were Grasim which closed at Rs 163.40 (Rs 153.05), Glaxo Rs 628 (Rs 595), Castrol Rs 672.50 (Rs 643.20), Infosys Tech Rs 2615.00 (Rs 2505) and Smithkline Rs 537.85 (Rs 517).

The losers included Hindalco Rs 496.25 (509.70), Cipla Rs 844 (Rs 857), Bajaj Auto Rs 555 (Rs 561.60), Hero Honda Rs 551.10 (Rs 557.25) and P&G Rs 765 (Rs 772).

The FIIs were net buyers registering net buying worth Rs 319.9 million. The domestic institutional investors and mutual funds were the net-sellers worth Rs 26 million.

The wholesale debt market of the National Stock Excahnge witnessed trades worth Rs 5.92 million. The 11.55 per cent government loan maturing in 2001 was traded for Rs 1.45 million at a weighted yield of 11.44 per cent, the 11.40 per cent government loan maturing in 2000 was traded for Rs 600 million at a weighted yield of 11.30 per cent. Commercial paper of MRF Limited maturing on February 8, 1999 was traded for Rs 100 million at a yield of 10.35 per cent.

UNI

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