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Week of buyback-fuelled surge and H1-powered pressure: Sensex up 28 points, 2812.49; Nifty up six points, 824

The prime minister's eight-point economy revival package boosted market sentiments on the Bombay Stock Exchange with equities registering moderate gains on speculative buying during the week ended October 31, 1998.

Welcoming the buyback announcements, the 30-scrip BSE Sensitive Index zoomed up by 105 points on Monday but dropped substantially in the next four trading sessions as the foreign institutional investors were not much active while the leading domestic institutional investor UTI remained seller throughout the week.

Although there were some encouraging results by State Bank of India, Bajaj Auto, Novartis, Indian Oil Corporation, Tata Tea, HPCL, Cadbury, Asian Paints, Britannia, ICICI and Hindalco. The discouraging performance by steel giant Tisco, vehicle major Telco, TEC, ACC, Ashok Leyland, Colgate, Essar Shipping, Grasim, Sail and Thermax dampened the market sentiments.

Reserve Bank of India's credit policy also turned out as a non-event for markets as the central bank did not touch the interest rates structure.

Mirroring the trend, the BSE Sensitive Index closed higher by 28.03 points to 2812.49 points from the previous week's close of 2784.46 points. The broad-based BSE-100 index also advanced by 14.78 points to 1260.78 points from the previous week's close of 1246.00 points.

The BSE-200 and Dollex indices closed higher by 3.23 and 1.05 points to 293.73 and 115.42 points from the last week's close of 290.50 and 114.37 points.

Total turnover on the BSE witnessed during the week was Rs 61.79 billion.

Among the gainers, ACC rose by Rs 95.75 to Rs 919, BSES Rs 5.40 to Rs 149.50, Cadbury Rs 16.50 to Rs 369.25, Glaxo Rs 18 to Rs 479.25, Hindustan Lever Rs 16.40 to Rs 1603, India Hotels Rs 5.75 to Rs 409.50, Infosys Technologies Rs 52.25 to Rs 2423, IPCL Rs 4.60 to Rs 57.40, Novartis Rs 30.50 to Rs 695.25, Pentafour Software Rs 2.00 to Rs 640, Pond's Rs 12 to Rs 1186, Satyam Computers Rs 31.50 to Rs 593 and Telco Rs 11.90 to Rs 112.90.

The losers included Bajaj Auto dropped by Rs 8.25 to Rs 553.75, Dr Reddy's Rs 2.50 to Rs 444.50, Grasim Rs 6.50 to Rs 138.50, Hero Honda Rs 23.25 to Rs 556, Hindalco Rs 26 to Rs 475.50, ITC Rs 8.25 to Rs 699.75, L&T Rs 3.20 to Rs 144.60, M&M Rs 2.60 to Rs 147.40, Ranbaxy Rs 87 to Rs 499.25 and SBI Rs 0.40 to Rs 155.60.

Share prices also registered marginal recovery on the National Stock Exchange on speculative buying support.

The NSE conducted six trading sessions including today's trading session from the NSE's back-up site in Pune, displayed a total turnover of Rs 75.55 billion.

Reflecting an uptrend, the S&P CNX Nifty index gained by 5.67 points to 824.00 from the last week's close of 817.35 points. The S&P CNX Nifty Junior rose by 8.15 points to 1419.75 points from the previous week's close of 1411.60 points. CNX Defty closed higher by 4.85 points to 674.55 points against the last week's close of 669.70 points.

The CNX-500 and Midcap-200 indices also edged up by 5.69 and 9.17 points to 569.19 and 510.44 points from last Friday's close of 563.50 and 501.27 points respectively.

UNI