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Equities firm up on bull support; Nifty spurts 28 points, 874.25

Share prices firmed up further on good buying support by domestic institutions and bull operators, on the opening day of the current settlement on the National Stock Exchange today.

Reflecting the uptrend, the S&P CNX Nifty index gained by 28.50 points to 874.25 points from 845.75 points of the previous day.

The CNX Nifty Junior Index shot up by 58.95 points to 1520.15 points from 1461.20 points and S&P CNX Defty moved up by 24 points to 715.25 from 691.25 ponts. The S&P CNX 500 index went up by 19.10 points to 604.76 from 585.66 points while CNX Midcap 200 climped up by 19.81 points to 539.15 points from 519.34 points of the previous day.

The total turnover, involving 60.04 million shares in 201,871 trades was Rs 17.13 billion and the debentures' turnover was Rs 5.54 million.

About 741 scrips gained, 194 lost and 72 remained unchanged. Over 93 securities hit their price bands today.

The top gainers in the S&P CNX Nifty were: MTNL 8.01 per cent to Rs 198.15, Infosys Technologies 7.35 per cent to Rs 2436.95, India Hotel 7.32 per cent to Rs 408.15, Arvind Mill 6.28 per cent to Rs 34.70 and ITC 5.17 per cent to Rs 696.10.

The top losers were ICICI 1.17 per cent to Rs 46.35 and Great Eastern Shipping 0.50 per cent to Rs 20.

Foreign institutional investorss sold shares worth Rs 734.1 million against their lower purchase worth Rs 359.2 million, resulting into a net outflow of Rs 374.9 million. However, domestic institutions supported the market in a big way with their net purchases worth Rs 48.3 million.

Satyam Computers registered the highest turnover of Rs 3.62 billion, followed by ITC Rs 3.32 billion and Pentafour Software Rs 1.43 billion.

The other actively traded counters were: SPIC Rs 1.21 billion, Zee Telefilms (Rs 1.07 billion), Reliance (Rs 810.5 million), HCL-HP (Rs 434.7 million), Dr Reddy's (Rs 400.9 million), Castrol (Rs 341 million), BHEL (Rs 330.4 million), Infosys Technology (Rs 2658 million), BFL Software (Rs 244.1 million), Hindustan Lever (Rs 243.1 million), NIIT (Rs 211.2 million), Digital Equipment (Rs 185.6 million), L&T (Rs 174.7 million), Bajaj Auto (Rs 166.7 million), MTNL (Rs 158.2 million), Bausch & Lomb (Rs 134.3 million), Sterlite (Rs 129.7 million), ACC (Rs 127.1 million), Telco (Rs 115.5 million) and Tata Tea (Rs 114 million).

The wholesale debt market of NSE witnessed increased activity with trades worth Rs 6.02 billion. The zero coupon government bond maturing in 1999 was traded for Rs 490 million at a weighted yield of 10.41 per cent. The 11.40 per cent government loan maturing in 2000 was traded for Rs 600 million at a weighted yield of 11.46 per cent.

The commercial paper of Telco maturing on December 9, 1998 was traded for Rs 300 million at a yield of 10.80 per cent. Seven repo trades worth Rs 1.50 billion were transacted at a repo rate varying between 8.75 to 8.90 per cent for 14 days. The turnover in debentures was Rs 4.97 million.

UNI