COMMENTARY
INTERVIEWS
SPECIALS
CHAT
ARCHIVES

Sensex gains by 19.36 points

Reflecting the mixed trend, the BSE Sensex opened on a firm note at 3745.19 points, touched the day's high of 3792.86 by recording an intraday gain of 73 points over Friday's close. However, it came down sharply and touched the day's low of 3736.95 points and finally settled at 3739.21, showing a moderate gain of 19.36 points over the previous close of 3719.85 points.

According to market players, speculators were encouraged with the news of the record collection of over Rs 100 billion by the Income Tax Department under the Voluntary Disclosure of Income Scheme and built up their positions in the morning trade. However, there was no support from the FIIs or the FIs, and the market witnessed profit-taking, resulting in a retreat in the share prices, they said.

Vasudeo Joshi, fund manager, at the Jardine Fleming said, "There are no new allocations of funds by FIIs in view of the coming general elections in India. I hope that the FIIs would allocate funds for India at the end of February or mid-March."

The BSE-100 index firmed up by 13.11 points to 1627.39 as against the previous close of 1614.28 points. The BSE 200 and Dollex indices also closed higher by 3.35 and 0.93 points to 364.94 and 154.29 points as against the previous close of 361.58 and 153.34 points.

The marketmen also attributed the retreat in the share prices to the weak trend in world stock markets.

The total turnover on the BSE increased by Rs 1.8 billion to Rs 8.2 billion from Friday's turnover of Rs 6.4 billion.

Tobacco giant ITC continued at top position by registering the highest turnover of Rs 1.8 billion, followed by Tata Tea Rs 1.1 billion, State Bank of India Rs 1 billion, Reliance Rs 697.4 million and Castrol India Rs 442.8 million.

Hectic activity was observed at the other counters like TELCO Rs 275.8 million, TISCO Rs 198.7 million, Hind Lever Rs 187.2 million, BPL Ltd Rs 156 million, L and T Rs 97.6 million, IPCL Rs 96.3 million, MTNL Rs 96 million, Bajaj Auto Rs 94.8 million, Sesa Goa Rs 89.8 million and ACC Rs 7.56 million.

Good transactions were witnessed at select counters in B1 group, namely, Corporation Bank, ITC Hotel, Infosys Tech, DSQ Software, NIIT, Pun Tractor, Rel Pet, Lakshmi Mach, Bata India, Novartis Ind, Raasi Cement, LML Ltd, Tata Infotec and Flex Indus.

UNI