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Equities firm up after early dip; Nifty up three points, 871.75

Pivotals opened lower, firmed up moderately towards close on speculative buying support by domestic institutions and bull operators on the National Stock Exchange today.

Reflecting the firm trend, the S&P CNX Nifty opened lower at 868.45 points, touched the high of 874.20, dropped to the low of 857.20 before closing at 871.75, gaining 2.90 points from its previous close of 868.85 points. The CNX Nifty Junior edged down by 0.60 points to 1446.55 points and the S&P CNX Defty improved by 1.40 points to 713.50 points. The S&P CNX 500 index moved up by 2.86 points to 592.49 points and CNX Midcap 200 index was up by 0.88 points to 520.05 points.

Total turnover in 195,639 trades, involving 65.41 million shares was Rs 13 billion and the debentures traded value was Rs 2.7 million.

About 328 securities advanced, 614 declined while 97 remained unchanged. And 30 scrips hit their price bands today.

Foreign institutional investors were net sellers worth Rs 136.3 million. However, domestic institutions made net investment worth Rs 1.78 million today.

The top gainers included Reliance which rose to Rs 124.90 from Rs 120.20, Glaxo Rs 536.85 (517.60), IPCL Rs 60.85 (59.25), Telco Rs 139.65 (136.85) and Grasim Rs 163.80 (160.70).

The top losers were Great Eastern Shipping to Rs 22.85 from Rs 23.50, IDBI Rs 42.60 (43.30), Orient Bank Rs 41.70 (Rs 42.35), BHEL Rs 267.30 (Rs 271.20) and Tata Chemicals Rs 86.05 (87.15).

Reliance registered the highest turnover of Rs 2.40 billion, followed by ITC (Rs 1.79 billion), SBI New (Rs 1.36 billion), Satyam Computers (Rs 1.25 billion), Pentafour Software (1.10 billion), Zee Telefilms (Rs 713.9 million), Castrol (Rs 534.5 million), Telco (Rs 497.6 million), HCL-HP (Rs 376.4 million), ACC (Rs 222.4 million), Tata Tea (Rs 207.2 million), L&T (Rs 147.5 million) and Glaxo (Rs 147 million).

The other actively traded counters were: BHEL (Rs 124 million), ICICI (Rs 115.9 million), Tisco (Rs 112.4 million), Sterlite (Rs 93 million), Nestle (Rs 88.6 million), Infosys Tech (Rs 87.4 million), MTNL (Rs 81.3 million), Digital Equipment (Rs 71 million) and NIIT (Rs 62.8 million).

The wholesale debt market of NSE witnessed trades worth Rs 4.13 billion. The zero coupon government bond maturing in February 1999 was traded for Rs 810 million at a weighted yield of 9.51 per cent. The 12 per cent government stock maturing in April 1999 was traded for Rs 400 million at a weighted yield of 10.17 per cent. The 11.40 per cent government loan maturing in 2000 was traded for Rs 250 million at a weighted yield of 11.34 per cent.

Commercial paper of Ramco Industries Limited was traded for Rs 70 million at a yield of 10.60 per cent. Two repo trades totalling Rs 300 million were transacted at a repo rate of 8.60 per cent and 8.65 per cent for 14 days. The total turnover of debentures was Rs 112.67 million.

UNI

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