Sensex spurts on institutional buying

MUMBAI, APRIL 10. Sustained hectic buying by foreign funds and local operators sent the revised Sensex spurting by a whopping 224 points, as bulls continued their rampage on the Bombay Stock Exchange for the fourth consecutive session today.

Led by information technology stocks, industrials posted fresh moderate to handsome gains, backed by a smart rally in Nasdaq composite index in the last three days. With the result, most of the IT counters hit the upper band right from the onset of business. The Nasdaq composite index rose by a steep 179 points last Friday.

The upsurge in the new revamped Sensex effective Monday could be gauged by the spectacular rise in the four new stocks - Dr. Reddy, Reliance Petroleum, Satyam Computer and Zee Telefilms - in the place of IDBI, Indian Hotel, Tata Chemicals and Tata Power.

A lower badla rate of around 11 per cent as against 16.5 per cent last week and a sharp drop of over Rs. 630 crores to nearly Rs. 2,550 crores in the net outstanding positions on the BSE also aided the sharp uptrend. Meanwhile the BSE-30 share sensitive index opened with a wide gap of over 262 points at 5481.49 and rallied further to the day's peak at 5532.54.

But, late profit-taking on the penultimate day of the current account on the National Stock Exchange trimmed part of the early gains. With the result, the index fell to a low of 5435.35 before closing at 5442.8, still a hefty rise of 223.66 points or 4.29 per cent from last Friday's close of 5219.20.

Foreign institutional investors reportedly picked up shares of software and media companies while on the other hand local funds booked profits in Hindustan Lever and few others.

The volume of business remained low at Rs. 1,898.39 crores as most of the heavily traded counters were stuck at the upper price band right from the commencement of trading with sellers hard to locate.

Thirtyfive shares including all software scrips of the 100 specified gainers closed at the upper end of the circuit while 39 showed marginal losses.

The BSE-100 index shot up by 138.78 points to 3018.50. The BSE- 200 index and the Dollex were up at 642.59 and 245.32 against last close of 614.93 and 234.74 respectively. The BSE-500 index spurted by 85.90 points to 1942.37.

Reliance clocked the highest turnover of Rs. 574.77 crores followed by SBI (Rs. 193.08 crores), ITC Rs. 105.05 crores, ACC (Rs. 82.72 crores) and Himachal Futuristic (Rs. 74.35 crores).

- PTI

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