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FIIs buy infotech stocks; Asian upswing spurs recovery; Sensex up 10.6 points, 2875.09

Share prices staged a marginal recovery at the Bombay Stock Exchange on good buying support from foreign institutional investors at infotech counters on the last day of current weekly settlement cycle today.

According to leading BSE brokers, the FIIs made considerable purchases at select counters like Satyam Computers, Pentafour Software, Castrol, Telco and Zee Telefilms.

Besides FIIs buying in select scrips, the continuous uptrend in the Asian markets, in spite of the ongoing US attacks on Iraq, boosted market sentiments at the BSE, dealers said.

Reflecting the trend, the 30-scrip BSE Sensex opened at 2875.91 points, touched the day's high of 2890.30 points, touched the day's low of 2850.48 points before closing at 2875.09 points, showing a net gain of 10.65 points as against the previous close of 2864.44 points.

The broad-based BSE-100 index also advanced by 5.31 points to 1273.17 points from the previous close of 1267.86 points.

At the Tokyo market, the Nikkei index closed higher by 67.30 points to 14194.29 points, the Hang Seng index at the Hong Kong market registered a smart gain of 142.92 points to 10,226.23 points while the FTSE-100 at London reported marginal gain of 2.8 points at 5688 points immediately after the opening of market, market sources said.

The BSE-200 and Dollex indices closed higher by 1.32 and 0.55 points to 295.37 and 115.60 points from the previous close of 294.05 and 115.05 points respectively.

Among the issues, BHEL gained by 90 paise to Rs 237, Castrol Rs 6.50 to Rs 668.75, Dr Reddy's Rs 4.75 to Rs 450.50, Grasim Rs 2.40 to Rs 162.80, Hindalco Rs 9 to Rs 499.50, India Hotels Rs 4.75 to Rs 357.25, India Rayon Re 1 to Rs 102.50, Infosys Technologies Rs 112.75 to Rs 2675.75, Ingersoll Rs 4.25 to Rs 421.50, ITC Rs 6 to Rs 696, Mahindra & Mahindra Rs 1.20 to Rs 153.80, NIIT Rs 11.25 to Rs 1462, Pentafour Software Rs 25.75 to Rs 512, Raymond Rs 1.05 to Rs 84.10, Reliance Rs 0.20 to Rs 112.20, Rhone Poul Rs 7.25 to Rs 722.75, Satyam Computers Rs 34 to Rs 630, SBI Rs 0.40 to Rs 150.10, Telco Rs 4.70 to Rs 141.30, Tisco Re 1 to Rs 97, Tata Tea earned Rs 4.10 to Rs 294.20 and Zee Telefilms Rs 9 to Rs 586.25.

Among the losers, Asian Paints lost by Rs 4.80 to Rs 287, BSES Re 1 to Rs 139.10, Glaxo Rs 2.50 to Rs 603.25, Hindustan Lever Rs 4 to Rs 1655.50, Pfizer Rs 5.75 to Rs 833.75, Ranbaxy Rs 10.40 to Rs 248.80.

Total turnover on the BOLT system stood at Rs 12.55 billion which came from trading of Rs 48.8 million shares in 129,695 trades during the day.

Satyam Computers topped the list of turnover by registering highest turnover of Rs 3.62 billion, followed by ITC Rs 1.52 billion, Pentafour Software Rs 1.23 billion, Zee Telefilms Rs 977.6 million and Telco Rs 595.3 million.

Other actively traded scrips were Reliance (Rs 516.5 million), SBI (Rs 419.6 million), Infosys Technologies (Rs 311.1 million), Castrol (Rs 223.6 million), Tisco (Rs 186.7 million), MTNL (Rs 144.5 million), Tata Tea (Rs 135.7 million), Glaxo India (Rs 129.9 million), L&T (Rs 118.1 million) and Bajaj Auto (Rs 101.5 million).

UNI

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