COMMENTARY
INTERVIEWS
SPECIALS
CHAT
ARCHIVES

Next week may sustain Sensex surge; infotech, MNC and pharma shares post major gains

A jubilant mood was witnessed on the Bombay Stock Exchange as equities zoomed up on frenzied buying by foreign institutional investors and domestic institutional investors during the week ended January 8. The Sensex crossed three important marks and closed at 3397.84 registering a whopping gain of 337 points over the previous week.

On a firm start, the market continued to ride on the wave of bullish phase throughout the week. Infotech and MNC shares were the major gainers along with select pharma stocks.

Leading market analysts said that the market would go further up by at least 100 points, before suffering a technical correction.

The market also established a record in one day turnover on the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange on the last day of the week when the business volume surpassed earlier record of Rs 20 billion and Rs 27 billion respectively.

The BSE touched an all-time record of one-day business volume on Friday when the total turnover stood at Rs 20.46 billion.

The FIIs Jardine Fleming and Morgan Stanley made heavy purchases in infotech and MNC shares, dealers said and added that speculators and domestic institutional investors like the Unit Trust of India, Life Insurance Corporation and General Insurance Corporation too joined them.

The market analysts further said that the FIIs have raised their fund allocation for India in view of better performance by Indian markets than the southeast Asian countries in spite of economic slowdown in the calender year 1998.

Reflecting the bullish phase, the 30-scrip BSE Sensex closed at 3397.84 points against the previous week's close of 3060.34 points, showing a record gain of 337.50 points. The broad-based BSE-100 index increased sharply by 147.08 points to 1509.31 points from the previous week's close of 1362.23 points.

Among the issues, cement giant ACC rose sharply by Rs 176.50 to Rs 1186.50, Bajaj Auto Rs 37.50 to Rs 556.25, BHEL Rs 42.80 to Rs 306, BSES Rs 25.20 to Rs 167.20, Glaxo Rs 28.25 to Rs 641.75, Hindalco Rs 47.50 to Rs 564.75, Indian Hotels Rs 21 to Rs 377.25, Infosys Technologies Rs 312.25 to Rs 3,250, ITC Rs 79 to Rs 833, L&T to Rs 197.50, MTNL Rs 13.40 to Rs 194.40, NIIT Rs 144 to Rs 1739.25, Pentafour Software Rs 39 to Rs 780, Reliance Rs 18.75 to Rs 140.60, Satyam Computers Rs 75 to Rs 814.25, Telco Rs 41 to Rs 206.70 and Tisco Rs 6.30 to Rs 129.80.

Meanwhile, the BSE-200 and Dollex indices also flared up by 32.29 and 12.50 points to 346.78 and 135.78 points from the previous week's close of 314.49 and 123.28 points respectively.

Total turnover on the BSE advanced significantly by Rs 14.99 billion to Rs 87.29 billion from the previous week's turnover of Rs 72.30 billion.

The NSE also witnessed a firm trend throughout the week.

Mirroring the uptrend, the S&P CNX Nifty zoomed up by 99.75 points to 990.35 points from the last week's close of 890.60 points, the S&P CNX Nifty Junior rose sharply by 132.25 points to 1662.35 points as against last Friday's close of 1530.10 points.

The CNX Defty ended higher by 79.65 points to 806.50 points from the previous close of 726.85 points.

The S&P CNX-500 and CNX Midcap-200 closed higher by 59.93 and 50.85 points to 673.88 and 590.82 points as against the previous close of 613.95 and 549.97 points.

UNI

Business news