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Sensex stages smart recovery; 2990.22

Positive indication on the continuation of the All India Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's support to the Union government has changed market sentiments on the Bombay Stock Exchange today with the BSE Sensex staging a smart recovery by nearly 40 points.

Reports of rebounding in stock prices in world markets also encouraged the operators here, dealers said.

Reflecting the recovery, the BSE Sensex opened lower at 2944.64 points against the previous close of 2950.80 and crossed the important mark of 3000 points to touch the day's high of 3016.11 points while it fell to touch the day's low of 2931.76 points and finally ended on a better note at 2990.22, showing a net gain of 39.42 points over the previous close.

The foreign institutional investors pressed sales in select scrips while the bear operators made considerable purchases in the heavy-weighted scrips, dealers said.

The rupee's continuous decline against the American greenback could not have seen any immediate impact on the market. The rupee today closed further lower at Rs 43.12/15 against yesterday's close of Rs 42.95/43.05 per dollar.

The infotech shares were also in the demand and the institutional investors were seen buying there, another dealer said.

The broad-based BSE-100 index gained by 15.47 points to 1334.78 against the previous close of 1319.31 points.

Similarly, the BSE-200 and Dollex indices also closed higher by 2.83 and 0.40 points to 308.99 and 119.11 points as against the previous close of 306.16 and 118.71 points respectively.

Meanwhile, according to the reports from overseas, stocks were rebounding in the United states and closed with gains in leading European exchanges on Wednesday after a mixed showing in Asia as edgy traders looked for bargains following gloomy Tuesday.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which began bouncing back from steep losses late Tuesday, kept regaining lost ground and was up as much as 101 points on Wednesday. By mid-afternoon, the Dow was up 54.58 at 8517.43 in trading that was not quite as heavy as Tuesday's hectic pace.

The total turnover in the screen-based BOLT system, involving 34.4 million shares of 1,237 companies in 118,756 trades, stood at Rs 9.84 billion. ITC registered the highest turnover of Rs 1.86 billion in the A group followed by Satyam Computer Rs 1.73 billion, Zee Telefilms Rs 1.17 billion, Pentafour Software Rs 714.3 million, SBI Rs 475.5 million, Tata Tea Rs 344 million, Reliance Rs 312.1 million, Infosys Tech Rs 244.4 million, BHEL Rs 195.5 million, Telco Rs 193.3 million, Castrol India Rs 134.2 million, ACC Rs 117.8 million, Dr Reddy's Rs 116.9 million and Digital Equipment Rs 106.9 million.

Among the gainers, ACC profited by Rs 35.50, Bajaj Auto Rs 12.75, BHEL Rs 10.70, Colgate Rs 2.30, Hindustan Lever by Re 1, ITC by Rs 9.50, Satyam Computers Rs 5.50, Pentafour Software Rs 21, SBI Rs 4.10 and Tata Tea by Rs 5.70.

However, Bharat Forge lost by Rs 3.05, BPL Rs 3.00, BSES Rs 3.60, Cochin Refineries Rs 8.50 and Excel Rs 3.30.

UNI