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Sensex gains as FIIs reenter arena

Pivotals recovered moderately on the Bombay Stock Exchange on Tuesday following buying support from foreign institutional investors and local operators.

The FIIs participated in the market activities after a long gap. The FIIs entry also boosted the sentiments of local operators on the BSE. Moreover, the report of BSE's decision to start a revised carryforward trading system from November 10 also had a positive impact on the trading, marketmen said.

Mirroring the trend, the BSE Sensitive Index opened at 3799.55 points, touched the day's high of 3852.24 points, declined to the day's low of 3782.94 points, and later closed at 3805.95 points, showing a net gain of 15.13 points over the previous close of 3790.82 points.

The broadbased BSE-100 Index gained by 4.86 points to 1644.07 points over the previous close of 1639.21 points.

The BSE-200 and Dollex Indices closed higher at 369.82 and 169.24 points against the previous close of 369.17 and 169.13 points respectively.

The FIIs bought 100,000 shares at TELCO counter and sold considerable shares at ITC counter. They also made limited purchases at select counters, market sources said.

Grasim Industries Ltd reported a lower net profit. The company has posted net profit of Rs 1.25 billion for the first six months of current financial year, lower by 15.0 per cent as against Rs 1.47 billion reported during the corresponding period of the previous year.

Marketmen were aware of the company's performance from the media reports, and therfore not much volatility was witnessed in the company's scrip on the BSE. The scrip remained steady during the day.

The total turnover on the BSE stood at Rs 8.6 billion. ITC registered the highest business volume of Rs 4.3 billion, followed by Reliance Rs 925.1 million, SBI Rs 820.5 million, Tata Tea Rs 581.2 million and TELCO Rs 264.6 million.

Hectic activity was also observed at the other counters like Castrol Rs 234.2 million, HDFC Rs 128.5 million, L&T Rs 110.3 million, TISCO Rs 103 million, Hind Lever Rs 95.1 million, MTNL Rs 93.6 million, Hero Honda Rs 82.3 million, ICICI Rs 55.3 million, BHEL Rs 51 million, ACC Rs 49.7 million.

Good transactions were witnessed at some counters in the B1 group like VSNL, Infosys Tech, Dig Equip, LML, Astra, Cipla, Satyam Comp, HDFC Bank, Coats, Aptech, Nicholas Pir, Rel Pet, Hind Oil Exp, Orchid Chem and Software Sol.

UNI