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August 4-8: The rise and fall of the Sensex

In a seesaw week, the Bombay Stock Exchange crossed the important mark of 4600 on Wednesday, August 6, but fell sharply and was quoted below 4400 mark on Friday at the end of the weekly settlement during the week of from August 4 to August 8.

Taking advantage of the no-delivery period in leading scrips, punters on the BSE made large purchases initially and squared off their positions towards the end of week resulting in major fluctuations in the BSE Sensex. The foreign institutional investors which were also in the market made limited purchases at select counters throughout the week.

The FIIs made purchases despite the sudden political developments at the Centre in the wake of withdrawal of the insurance regulatory bill. However, their purchases were restricted to the fundamentally strong scrips.

Mirroring the trend, the BSE sensitive index registered a net gain of 50.48 points to 4397.54 over the previous week's close of 4347.06. On Wednesday, the BSE Sensex opened at 4568.39, crossed the important mark of 4600 and touched the new high of 4605.41. It, however, slipped to close at 4523.01.

The BSE-100 index gained by 22.12 points to 1914.02 against the previous week's close of 1891.90. The BSE-200 and dollex indices closed at 425.87 and 198.44 against the previous close of 421.25 and 196.45 points respectively.

The market opened on a bullish note, sending the BSE Sensex up by 118 points and further addition of about 88 points on the next day. The FIIs which stayed away from the market on Monday, entered the market on Tuesday and made considerable purchases at the counters of State Bank of India, Bajaj Auto, TISCO and TELCO.

Half-yearly and first quarterly good performance by Hindustan Lever and Larsen and Toubro respectively encouraged the FIIs during the week.

The total turnover on the BSE increased by Rs 18.8647 billion to Rs 63.8868 billion against the previous weeks turnover of Rs 45.0221 billion.

Trading activity was severely affected on the National Stock Exchange on Tuesday when about 500 NSE members faced VSAT connectivity problem on account of the drift of Insat 2A satellite. The NSE authorities allowed the members to square up their position on Wednesday in a special trading session. The exchange has also revised its trading timings from Thursday. According to the revised timings, the market will open for normal trading at 0900 hours IST and will close at 1430 hours IST (on all days except auction days).

During the week, the NSE-50 index registered gain of 24.55 points to 1256.95 against the previous week's close of 1232.40. The midcap index also firmed up by 29.55 points to 1360.10 against the previous week's of 1330.55 points.

The total turnover on the NSE was reduced by Rs 9.229 billion to Rs 82.5085 billion against the previous week's turnover of Rs 91.6575 billion.

UNI