COMMENTARY
INTERVIEW
SPECIALS
CHAT
ARCHIVES

Sensex improves

After opening on a weak note, the Sensex improved moderately due to fresh purchases by the operators and hectic short covering by bull operators at the tobacco giant ITC counter on the Bombay Stock Exchange on Wednesday.

The market opened on a weak note as the arbitrators reacted strongly to the news of Pakistani troops who resorted unprovoked shelling of Indian positions in two new areas on the Line of Control while small arms fire in the Kargil sector of Jammu and Kashmir continued for the second day on Wednesday, according to market sources.

But after the midsession, hectic short covering at the ITC counter by the bull operators was witnessed, with Thursday being a holiday on the occasion of Mahatma Gandhi Jayanti. Influenced by the heavy fresh buying in the National Stock Exchange, its first day of the current settlement, bear operators made fresh purchases even at the BSE, marketmen said.

Company circles made good purchases in Reliance, added to the recovery of the Sensex which closed on a better note, they added.

The BSE Sensitive Index opened on a weak note below the psychological barrier of 3900 at 3885.41 points over Tuesday's close of 3902.03 points, touched the day high of 3905.51, a low of 3848.15 points, and finally closed slightly higher at 3905.51, registering a gain of 3.48 points.

Similarly, the BSE-100 Index also improved further by 0.84 points to 1693.16 points from 1692.32 points.

The BSE -200 and dollex indices also settled higher by 0.98 and 0.22 points to 379.04 and 174.47 points respectively over Tuesday's close of 378.66 and 174.25 points.

Meanwhile, the total turnover was Rs 7.5 billion out of 6,742 scrips. A total number of 1.792 scrips were traded.

Reliance Industries was the leading scrip in the volume of business, registering a total turnover of Rs 2 billion, followed by ITC Rs 2 billion, Tata Tea Rs 889.6 million, SBI Rs 714.8 million, Castrol Rs 227.4 million, TELCO Rs 171.8 million, TISCO Rs 160 million, Bajaj Auto Rs 139.4 million, Hind Lever Rs 116.4 million, BHEL Rs 80.2 million, Colgate Rs 64.5 million and Larsen and Toubro Rs 39.7 million in the specified counters.

Good transactions were also observed at Satyam Comp, ICICI Bank, Cipla, Dig Equip, Software Sol, Thiru Aroora, Masket, Aptech, Mico, Infosys Tech, Nicholas Pir, Bank of India, Wockhardt, Boots and HDFC Bank.

UNI