The Hindu : Late rally limits early losses

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Mar 25, 2004

Business

Business

Late rally limits early losses

MUMBAI, MARCH 24. The Sensex recovered early losses in the last thirty minutes on the back of selective stocks rally in an otherwise mixed pattern of trading on the Bombay Stock Exchange today on late buying support from operators and retailers that also squared up positions in derivatives. After showing signs of a fresh upsurge at early stages, the BSE benchmark 30-share index gradually moved downwards to the intra-day low of 5345.15 before ending at 5395.28 against yesterday's close of 5400.99, netting a small fall of 5.71 points.

The market witnessed revival of buying support in the last 30 minutes as operators and retail investors reportedly turned buyers creating fresh positions in cash segment after resorting to squaring up in derivatives on penultimate session of March contract in the Futures and Options segment. Brokers generally attributed the change in investor attitude to continued flow of investments from foreign institutional investors who were net buyers to the tune of Rs. 180 crores on Monday. The FIIs were believed to be net buyers in select blue chip counters at the prevailing lower levels.

The broad-based BSE-100 index improved by 5.85 points to 2841.02.

Index-based counters such as Reliance Energy, Tata Motors, RIL, ICICI Bank, MTNL, Cipla, BHEL, Bajaj Auto, HDFC Bank, Zee Telefilms, ONGC and HPCL scored handsome gains.

However, Infosys Technologies, HLL, GACL, SBI, ITC, Tisco, Grasim, Ranbaxy, Dr. Reddy's Lab and Wipro showed marked falls.

In the specified group, 99 including 17 index-based scrips registered marked to moderate gains while 94 others finished with losses.

PTI

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