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Exim Policy boosts week's sentiment: Sensex up 88 points, Nifty up 22 points

Market witnessed bullish trend in the last week of the financial year 1998-99 with the Sensex of the Bombay Stock Exchange rising by over 88 points in a three-day week ended April 2.

Due to two holidays on account of Mahavir Jayanti and Bakri Idd on Monday and Good Friday, there were only three trading sessions during the week.

The likely announcement of bonus issue by Satyam Computers during its board meeting on April 13 boosted market sentiments and the firm sentiment continued for the second straight session.

The market suffered a moderate setback on Thursday, the last day of the week on heavy offloading by major players, dealers said.

Mirroring the uptrend, the 30-scrip Sensex surpassed the psychological barrier of 3,600 mark and closed higher by 88.71 points at 3686.29 points as against previous week's close of 3597.58 points.

The broad-based BSE-100 index shot up by 47.97 points to 1633.87 points from the previous close of 1585.90 points.

According to market analysts, the markets got a major push on the back of institutional buying as they wanted to report better NAVs for March 31, 1999, an important NAV-reporting day.

Leading business chambers welcomed the Exim Policy for the year 1999-2000 stating that it would give the much needed boost to India's exports.

Satyam Computers hit the upward circuit filter on the opening day on the news that the company board is meeting on April 13 to consider bonus and dividend. The software remained firm throughout the week among other IT scrips, dealers said.

Total turnover on the BOLT during the week stood at Rs 46.97 billion.

Market analysts felt that the market is likely to continue uptrend and the Sensex may move towards the next target of 4,000 mark.

The National Stock Exchange also witnessed firm trend throughout the week.

Refecting the trend, the S&P CNX Nifty rose by 22.20 points at 1063.45 points from the last week's close of 1041.25 points. The S&P CNX Junior ended higher by 7.65 points to 2071.90 points as against the previous week's close of 1964.25 points.

The S&P CNX Defty increased by 17.50 points to 868.40 points from the previous close of 850.90 points.

The CNX-500 and Midcap rose by 19.93 and 29.44 points to 752.64 and 697.38 points as against the last week's close of 732.71 and 667.94 points respectively.

Total turnover on the NSE reported during the three-day week was stood at Rs 66.60 billion.

UNI

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