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Sensex gains 20 points

Mirroring the uptrend, the BSE Sensitive index (30 scrips) opened slightly lower on overnight selling pressure at 3630.42 points. Later, foreign institutional investors entered the market and bought index-based shares which flared the index up to 3711.26 points.

At the fag end, domestic institutions started booking profits at higher level which crashed the Sensex to the morning level. But the Sensex finally recovered marginally to close at 3658.98 points showing a net gain of 21.27 points as against its previous close of 3637.71 points.

Being the last day of the calender year, attendance at the market was thin, leading brokers said. FIIs bought sizeable number of ITC, Castrol India, Tata Tea and other bluechips, brokers added.

The non-specified scrips gained marginally as the BSE-100 index finished higher at 1586.60 points over the last trading day's close of 1577.79 points, gaining 08.81 points. The BSE-200 and Dollex indices also closed higher at 354.45 and 150.23 points as compared to yesterday's close of 352.20 and 149.39 points respectively.

Domestic institutions, namely the State Bank of India and Unit Trust of India, booked profits at the higher level during the last phase of trading, brokers added.

The Reserve Bank of India today offered new year gifts to the exporters as it restored the position on interest on post-shipment rupee export credit, and relaxed measures on interest rate for export credit effective from tomorrow, which will have some affected on the capital markets, the brokers said.

Total turnover increased to Rs 8.9 billion as against its previous day's total turnover of Rs 7.9 billion.

ITC continued with the highest turnover of Rs 3 billion followed by SBI Rs 1.3 billion, Tata Tea Rs 944.9 million, Castrol Ind Rs 828.1 million, Reliance Rs 489.5 million, TELCO Rs 312.9 million, Hind Lever Rs 184.6 million, ACC Rs 163.3 million, TISCO Rs 133.7 million, MTNL Rs 132.1 million, BHEL Rs 89 million, L&T Rs 86.6 million and Bajaj Auto Rs 69.8 million in the specified counters.

Good transactions were observed at Corporation (Rs 64.1 million), Bank of Baroda (Rs 29.7 million), Novartis Ind (Rs 28.7 million), Chambal Fert (Rs 20.4 million), Raasi Cement (Rs 18.5 million), Reliance Pet (Rs 18.3 million), Saverline (Rs 18.2 million), Infosys Tech (Rs 14 million), Jayshree Tea (Rs 12.8 million) and Swaraj Engin (Rs 10.3 million) at 'B1' counters.

UNI