The Hindu : Infosys leads recovery on BSE

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Mar 20, 2004

Business

Business

Infosys leads recovery on BSE

MUMBAI, MARCH 19. Led by Infosys Technologies, stocks recovered smartly aiding the Sensex to end 28 points higher after the overnight setback even as a late bout of selling pared part of early gains on Bombay Stock Exchange today. The turnaround was attributed to squaring up activity by operators at the weekend session.

Opening weak at 5410.48, the BSE benchmark 30-share index later recovered its losses and gradually moved upwards to the intra-day high of 5496.68 and ended at 5443.44 against yesterday's close of 5414.94, a net gain of 28.50 points. Operators and retailers were seen covering their short positions at the weekend with the expiry of March contract of the Futures and Options segment due on March 25. However, domestic funds and some major corporates were believed to have booked profits during the last 20 minutes of the session at the day's higher levels, brokers said. Local funds were sellers in view of approaching end of the current financial year despite fairly good purchases by foreign institutional investors who have made net purchases of Rs. 481 crores in the initial three sessions.

The broad-based BSE-100 index edged up by 9.59 points to 2887.97.

Had it not been for marked fall in heavyweights such as ITC, L&T, MTNL, Ranbaxy, ICICI Bank, Bharti Tele, Grasim and Cipla, the BSE barometer would have shown substantial gains.

Key stocks such as Infosys, Satyam Computer, RIL, HLL, SBI, Tata Motors, Tisco, Bajaj Auto and BHEL recorded sharp gains on fairly heavy investors buying. In the specified group, 103 including 15 index-based scrips registered sharp to moderate gains while 90 others finished with losses. The BSE-200 and the Dollex-200 were quoted up at 713.91 and 262.85 against 711.41 and 261.93 respectively. The BSE-500 improved by 5.79 points to 2181.63 and the Dollex-30 to 988.29 from 983.12.

The volume of business was relatively low at Rs. 2,116.86 crores against Rs. 2,254.23 crores. RIL remained the top traded share with the highest turnover of Rs. 273.71 crores followed by Infosys (Rs. 181.73 crores), Tisco (Rs. 178.23 crores) and Satyam Computer (Rs. 141.14 crores). - PTI

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Business