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Sensex skyrockets by 239.87 points due to SEBI ban, FI support

The ban on short sales of scrips by the Securities and Exchange Board of India and strong support by domestic institutions has paid rich dividends. The falling prices of shares showed an upsurge in trend and the Bombay Stock Exchange Sensex swung up by a record of 239.87 points to close at 3400.95 points today.

According to marketmen, the sharp reversal was noticed due to greater involvement of dometic institutions like Unit Trust of India and Life Insurance Corporation which gave sustained support throughout the day's trading.

Mirroring the uptrend, the BSE sensitive index (30 scrips) opened higher at 3291.43 points, touched the day's high of 3405.98 points, low of 3251.81 points, finally closing at 3400.95 points showing a net gain of 239.87 points as against the previous close of 3161.08 points.

The broad-based BSE national index shot up by 101.67 points to 1483.22 points over the last trading day's close of 1381.55 points.

The BSE-200 and dollex indices also improved by 21.71 and 09.00 points to 336.22 and 132.49 points as compared to yesterday's close of 314.51 and 123.58 points respectively.

BSE President Jaswantlal Parikh said that the SEBI directive forced the brokers to purchase the shares though some of them may be suffering a loss.

Asked about the outstanding shares of big bull Harshad Mehta and his syndicates, he said picture will be clear after the pay-in which is scheduled tomorrow. But, his brokers will have to make payment, he added.

Leading broker Chetan Doshi said that this is an artificial increase and once everybody covered their position the market will react again.

The total turnover on screen-based trading system marginally declined to Rs 9.16 billion from Rs 9.52 billion involving 45.3 million shares in 1,16,969 trades.

Volume of the business was headed by ITC with Rs 2.26 billion turnover followed by SBI Rs 1.07 billion, Satyam Computers Rs 809.2 million, Reliance Rs 745.7 million, Hindustan Lever Rs 385.2 million, Pentafour Rs 358 million, Castrol Rs 342.2 million, Tata Tea Rs 265.2 million, Zee Telefilm Rs 260.1 million, Tisco Rs 197.9 million, L and T Rs 172.3 million, Telco Rs 161.6 million, Bajaj Auto Rs 121.2 million, ACC Rs 112 million and Sterlite Rs 86.1 million in specified counters.

A good transanction was witnessed at Wipro (Rs 47.9 million), BFL software (Rs 30.3 million), Reliance Petro (Rs 18.8 million), Leading Edge (Rs 16 million), DSQ Software (Rs 12.4 million), Tata Infotec (Rs 12.2 million), Silverline (Rs 7.7 million), Software Sol (Rs 7 million).

UNI