Refinery stocks hog limelight

MUMBAI, JAN. 12. Refinery stocks hogged the limelight scoring impressive gains at close, even as equities generally moved downwards on the Bombay Stock Exchange today on good buying support prompted by indications about decontrol of petroleum sector at the earliest.

The government's reported move to bring forward the deadline for scrapping the administered price mechanism (APM) and consequent decontrol of petroleum sector, considered to be most favourable to the refinery sector, ignited brisk activity with speculators rushing to corner stocks of HPCL, BPCL, Cochin Refinery, Chennai Petro, Indian Oil and others.

The trend-setter Infosys Technologies also met with good enquiries attributed to purchases by a leading foreign fund and shortcovering on the last day of current settlement.

Other IT and media counters recorded substantial losses in spite of a sharp upsurge in the Nasdaq composite index yesterday. The Nasdaq, in a three-day winning streak, went up by over 116 points.

Generally, speculators squared up their positions selling off heavily in old economy stocks. As a result, the Sensex failed to maintain its higher levels.

The BSE sensitive index opened up at 4059.41 and later moved erratically rising to the day's high of 4082.77 before falling back to a low of 4018.28. Finally, it closed at 4036.58 against yesterday's close of 4027.13, netting a modest gain of 9.45 points. The BSE-100 index also moved up by 8.04 points to 2072.28 from 2064.24.

- PTI

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Section  : Business
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