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Sensex inches over 4000 mark

The Bombay Stock Exchange sensitive index on Thursday surpassed the 4000 mark as stock prices gained further following good buying support from leading domestic financial institutional investors coupled with moderate buying support from upcountry operators and speculators.

Reflecting the firm trend, the BSE Sensex opened at 3963.94, crossed the psychological barrier of 4000 points, touched the day's high of 4012.18 points, declined to the day's low of 3932.77 points, and later ended on a better note at 4007.04 points, netting a gain of 31.65 points over the previous close of 3965.39 points.

The BSE-100 index also firmed up by 15.63 points to 1744.62 points over the previous close of 1728.99 points. The BSE-200 and dollex indices closed higher by 2.99 and 1.17 points to 390.36 and 177.86 points against the previous close of 387.37 and 176.69 points respectively.

The market witnessed continued uptrend on the BSE despite lack of buying support from foreign institutional investors. The FIIs have adopted a 'wait-and-watch attitude' and preferred to stay away from the market following constant depreciation of the Indian rupee against the US greenback in the forex market. The rupee on Thursday closed at 36.55 per dollar and fell sharply by about 18 paise during this week.

According to market sources, the Unit Trust of India and Calcutta-based operators were the main buyers on Thursday. UTI, continuing its support to the market since the last four days, made good purchases at the fundamentally strong counters, sources said.

Leading BSE brokers said that marketmen are hopeful about the favourable decision on the badla trading in the old form, in the meeting scheduled to be held in Madras on Friday.

Meanwhile, ten out of a total 99 expanded BOLT terminals of the BSE became operational on Thursday, according to BSE sources. The remaining terminals will be activated by September 15.

National Stock Exchange

Pivotals moved in alternate bouts of buying and selling in a mixed trading, at the National Stock Exchange on Thursday.

Reflecting the trend, the NSE-50 index opened at 1134.30, touched the day's high of 1138.80, declined to the day's low of 123.70 points, and later closed at 1137.15 points, showing a net gain of 2.45 points over the previous close of 1134.70 points.

However, the midcap index drifted lower by 2.65 points to 1265.80 points against the previous close of 1268.45 points.

Total turnover on NSE reported during the day was at Rs 14.9 billion.

ITC stood first in the list of turnover by registering highest turnover of Rs 4.4 billion, followed by Reliance Rs 3.3 billion, SBI Rs 2 billion, Tata Tea Rs 1.1 billion and ACC Rs 454.9 million.

Hectic activity was observed at the other counters like TISCO Rs 447.1 million, Satyam Comp Rs 262.9 million, Colgate Rs 242.5 million, TELCO Rs 219 million, BHEL Rs 213.9 million, Guj Amb Rs 210.8 million, L&T Rs 179.5 million , Rel Capital Rs 155.7 million, Castrol Rs 153.9 million, ICICI Rs 140.6 million, BSES Rs 119.5 million, Hind Lever Rs 102.4 million, MTNL Rs 101.5 million, IPCL Rs 68 million, BPCL Rs 57.4 million, Reck Col Rs 51.7 million, IFCI Rs 48 million, Ranbaxy Rs 45.9 million, ONGC Rs 38.8 million and HPCL Rs 33.3 million.

Today's top five gainers were ICICI, IFCI, BSES, Nestle and IDBI, while the top five losers were Arvind Mills, Rel Capital, IPCL, Mahindra and Mahindra and HDFC Bank.

UNI