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Prices rally on FIs' support, Nifty 961.05

The upward movement continuted on the fourth day as share prices further rose on better buying support from bull operators on the National Stock Exchange.

Mirroring the marked improvement in the market, the NSE-50 index or Nifty gained smartly by 16.90 points to 961.05 points against the 944.15 points of the previous day. The Dollar-NSE 50 index also moved up by 13.55 points to 782.10 points from 768.55.

The Midcap index went up by 3.35 points to 1408.95 points as compared to 1405.60 of the previous day.

The total turnover, involving 47.75 million shares in 1,75,389 trades, was Rs 14.76 billion and the debentures' turnover was Rs 774 thousand today.

Nearly 517 securities advanced, 405 declined while 76 remained unchanged. About 43 securities have hit their price bands today.

Foreign institutional investors today purchased shares for Rs 508.62 million and sold for Rs 559.83 million, indicating an outflow of foreign funds of Rs 51.2 million from the market.

Tobacco giant ITC registered the highest turnover of Rs 3.76 billion, followed by Satyam Computers (Rs 2.10 billion), Infosys Tech (Rs 1.15 billion), Reliance (Rs 664.8 million), SBI (Rs 646.8 million), Penta Software (Rs 632 million), L&T (Rs 591 million), Tata Tea (Rs 545 million), Hindustan Lever (Rs 494.2 million), ACC (Rs 430.5 million), Telco (Rs 336.7 million), Wipro (Rs 309.5 million) and Castrol (Rs 263 million).

The other actively traded counters were Zee Telefilms (Rs 239.8 million), MTNL (Rs 208.2 million), Tisco (Rs 175.2 million), Bajaj Auto (Rs 161.7 million), BSES (Rs 124 million), BFL Software (Rs 114.3 million), Dr Reddy's (Rs 108.8 million), Square D Software (Rs 94.4 million), Silverline (Rs 89.1 million), Novartis (Rs 85.9 million), Sterlite (Rs 84.5 million) and BHEL (Rs 74.4 million).

Asian Paints topped the gainers' list with eight per cent increase to Rs 274.80, followed by Telco 7.99 per cent to Rs 175.05, MTNL 6.92 per cent to Rs 201.65, L&T 5.53 per cent to Rs 233 and Hindalco 4.70 per cent to Rs 664.05.

Grasim incurred the highest lose of 2.58 per cent to Rs 290.20. Thermax lost 2.15 per cent to Rs 147.60, Indo Gulf 2.10 per cent to Rs 32.60, Castrol 1.74 per cent to Rs 588.35 and Reliance Petro 1.55 per cent to Rs 19.10.

The wholesale debt market of NSE witnessed trading worth Rs 2.36 billion. The 11.55 per cent government loan maturing in 2001 was traded for Rs 700 million at a weighted yield of 11.50 per cent. The 13.65 per cent government loan maturing in 1999 was traded for Rs 250 million at a weighted yield of 9.87 per cent. The 364-day treasury bill maturing on July 31, 1998 was traded for Rs 100 million at a yield of seven per cent. Two repo trades amounting to Rs 200 million were transacted at a repo rate of 7 per cent for nine days.

UNI