The Bull run continues on Dalal Street-SENSEX up +99 points.
Indices shoot up on purchases made by foreign funds; Sensex jumps 99.78 points to 3307.49
Our Markets Bureau and Agencies in Mumbai
Led by Hindustan Lever, equities rallied sharply lifting the Sensex past the 3,300-psychological level on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Wednesday in the wake of hectic short covering coupled with heavy purchases by foreign institutional investors (FIIs) and domestic mutual funds.
The rally that emerged after the market had bottomed out at 3,157-level was attributed partly to the opening day of the new account on the National Stock Exchange (NSE). HLL spurted to its record high at Rs 2,033, a hefty gain of Rs 150.50 that contributed immensely to the Sensex upsurge. The announcement of HLL meeting on February 15 to consider the accounts and dividend had provided the boost.
The FIIs purchases included scrips like Castrol, Telco, ITC, Tisco, Zee Telefilms and others. Domestic funds were net buyers in heavy weighted shares like Telco, Tisco, MTNL, RIL and SBI. Surprisingly, local institutions were seen booking profits at higher levels in scrips like HLL, ITC and MTNL besides pressing continuous sales in refinery shares.
The BSE Sensex opened better at 3,221.04 and gradually moved upwards to close at 3,307.49 as against the previous close of 3,207.71, a sharp rise of 99.78 points. The BSE-100 shot up by 44.71 points to 1,454.32.
Dealers said operators covered short positions and even enlarged their commitments as the NSE new account witnessed heavy buying support from operators as well as FIIs. Several key scrips from specified group like HLL, Telco, Ashok Leyland, BPL, Digital Equipment, Finolex Cable, Indian Shaving, IPCL, Philips, Tata Tea, Titan Ind and Voltas hit the upper price band.
Scrips from B1, particularly software and telecom, hit the upper circuit breaker. The volume of business rose sharply by Rs 173.41 crore (Rs 100 crore = Rs 1 billion) to Rs 1,568.74 crore compared to the last Rs 1,395.33 crore.
Pentafour Software took the lead with a turnover of Rs 276.23 crore followed by Satyam Computer (Rs 149.09 crore), Tata Tea (Rs 131.88 crore), ITC (Rs 125.72 crore) and HLL (Rs 82.75 crore).
Pentafour Software declined by 9.50 to 943.50, Satyam Computer, however, hardened 16.50 to 900, Tata Tea by 31.25 to 424.75, ITC by 9.75 to 839.75, RIL by 3.70 to 123.20, SBI by 2.10 to 154.10, Telco by 14.70 to 198.70 and Tisco by 3.20 to 118.10.
Meanwhile, the NSE witnessed strong trading interest with most counters recording gains in view of fresh foreign investor buying. The total traded value traded at the exchange was Rs 2,260.19 crore with 786.75 lakh shares being traded.
The S&P CNX Nifty opened at 938.80, touched a low of 935.20 and closed at the day's high of 959.45, a gain of 34.70 against the previous close of 924.75. The CNX Nifty Junior was also up 52 points at 1,700.85 against the previous close of 1,648.85. There were 748 advances, 274 declines and 87 scrips remained unchanged.
Pentafour Software and Satyam Computers continued to remain the highest traded stocks, with traded values of Rs 515.74 crore and Rs 274.49 crore respectively. Pentafour, however, closed at its previous level of Rs 850 while most of the other software and pharma stocks moved up sharply. The other actively traded stocks were ITC, Tata Tea, Telco and HLL.
Marketmen said there was fresh FII buying in Castrol, Tata Tea, HLL and Glaxo. "Tomorrow will be the crucial trading day and the undertone is still bullish,'' a broker at an FII outfit said. FIIs were said to be buyers for Rs 80-100 crore at the major bourses.
The major gainers were IPCL (up 8.01%) at Rs 82.25 and M&M up 8 per cent at Rs 193.60. The Indian GDR markets also witnessed strong trading interest with most of the GDRs up by 1-2 per cent. The Telco GDR was up 5 per cent while the Ranbaxy GDR also moved up 4.5 per cent on buying interest in the underlying share at the local markets.
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