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Equities flare up on FI buying, Sensex up 53 points, 3219.93

Equity prices flared up further up on hectic short sale-covering coupled with continuous buying spree by the local financial institutions on Bombay Stock Exchange today.

The foreign institutional investors bought about 600,000 shares of Telco during last two days, leading brokers said and added that domestic institutions including Unit Trust of India, Life Insurance Corporation of India and General Insurance Corporation of India have invested good amount on both specified and non-specified counters which subsequently lifted the Sensex up by over 50 points for second consecutive day.

The market opened on a steady note, improved gradually during day's trading on good purchasing by the bull operators and institutions despite the discouraging performance by the heavy weighted shares like Telco and L&T during the first quarter of the financial year.

Mirroring the uptrend, the BSE Sensitive Index crossed yet another psychological barrier of 3,200 mark, it opened slightly higher at 3,169.88 points, touched day's high of 3,242.28 points, low of 3163.74 points, and finally closed at 3219.93 points, showing a net gain of 53.09 points as against the previous close of 3166.84 points.

The broad-based BSE National Index (100 scrips) also crossed 1400 mark and closed at 1418.42 points, improving by 20.68 points over yesterday's close of 1397.74 points.

The BSE-200 and Dollex indices finished at 325.43 and 127.39 points, gaining 04.53 and 01.86 points as compared to previous close of 320.90 and 125.53 points respectively.

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee today announced various measures to accelerate the economic integration of south Asia by offering free trade agreements, lifting of quantitative restrictions on more than 2,000 products and raising upto $ 15 million the investment limit for Indian investors venturing in the SAARC region have changed the atmosphere of the capital market, brokers said.

Satyam Computers recorded highest turnover of Rs 1.97 billion out of Rs 11.12 billion involving 41.2 million shares in 125,205 trades.

Among the active scrips were ITC Rs 1.94 billion, SBI Rs 783 million, RIL Rs 754.4 million, Zee Telefilms Rs 747.6 million, Pentafour Software Rs 677 million, Hindustan Lever Rs 664 million, Telco Rs 329.3 million, Tata Tea Rs 263.5 million, BHEL Rs 235 million, ACC Rs 234.5 million, Castrol Rs 225.4 million, NIIT Rs 157.6 million, Dr Reddy's Rs 156.2 million, L&T Rs 140.8 million in specified counters.

A good transaction was observed at Wipro (Rs 41.1 million), Silverline Industries (Rs 32.7 million), Bata India (Rs 23.6 million), HCL Infosys Tech (Rs 22 million), Hoechst Agre (Rs 16.2 million), Cipla (Rs 15.5 million), Rolta (Rs 12.1 million), Global Tele (Rs 9.3 million) and Videsh Sanchar (Rs 7.7 million) at 'B1' counters.

UNI