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Nifty gains 17.90 points

The market sentiment showed considerable improvement as equities firmed up towards the end of the trading session at the National Stock Exchange in Bombay today.

Indices moved higher on the scale and brisk activity was witnessed during the day. The NSE-50 index, after a better start, zoomed up to touch the day's high of 978.15 points and and did not drop below its initial open of 956.80 points. It eased marginally towards the fag end and settled at 974.55 points, gaining 17.90 points as against yesterday's close of 956.65 points.

The Dollar NSE-50 also surged ahead by 19.35 points to close at 873.75 points as against its previous close of 854.40 points. The Midcap index opened marginally lower at 1060.65 and gained considerably by 4.55 during the day's activity to close at 1065.50 points as against yesterday's close of 1060.90 points.

The market showed a total turnover of Rs 13.3 billion involving 37.8 million shares in 130,873 trades.

The top gainers for the day were Hind Lever Rs 1484 (Rs 1380.35), Nestle Rs 309 (Rs 292), Ponds Rs 1069.40 (Rs 1013.20), TELCO Rs 234.65 (Rs 227.60) and ITC Rs 607 (Rs 592.55).

The top five losers were MRPL Rs 17.05 (Rs 17.90), IndoGulf Rs 32.20 (Rs 32.85), Glaxo Rs 335.05 (Rs 341.70), Castrol Rs 633.60 (Rs 643.80) and Arvind Mills Rs 55.90 (Rs 56.75). Around 59 securities hit their price bands in the exchanged.

The most actively traded securities were ITC at Rs 4.8 billion, followed by hind lever Rs 2.5 billion, Castrol Rs 1.2 billion, Tata Tea Rs 793.7 million, Ponds Rs 586.1 million, SBI-N Rs 509.3 million, Reliance Rs 479.1 million, MTNL Rs 364.7 million, TELCO Rs 345.7 million, Bajaj Auto Rs 197.7 million, TISCO Rs 117.1 million, LML Rs 115.5 million, ACC Rs 107.9 million, L&T Rs 78.6 million, Nestle Rs 73.1 BHEL Rs 46.3 million, Glaxo Rs 45 million, Aptech Rs 43.7 million, VSNL Rs 42.5 million, Lakme Rs 38.6 million, ABB Rs 32.4 million, BSES Rs 30.2 million, Sterlite Rs 30 million, Reliance Dep LS-ML Rs 28 million and BPL at Rs 26.6 million.

UNI