The Hindu : Business : RIL leads recovery on BSE

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Dec 24, 2004

Business

Business

RIL leads recovery on BSE

MUMBAI, DEC. 23. Led by top heavyweight Reliance Industries (RIL), share prices staged a smart recovery pushing the Sensex up by 28.19 points to close at 6441.85 on the Bombay Stock Exchange today on renewed buying by foreign funds, cutting short overnight decline.

RIL, the petrochem giant, continued to be in demand on sustained buying by institutional investors coupled with short-covering by operators ahead of the company's board meeting on Monday to propose buyback of shares.

Foreign institutional investors, who sold shares valued at Rs. 49.40 crores on Monday, became active and picked up shares valued at Rs. 179.90 crores on Tuesday, turning the table in favour of bulls, dealers said. The BSE-30 share sensitive index opened slightly lower at 6410.30 against yesterday's close of 6413.66, but gradually moved upwards to a high of 6455.69 before concluding at 6441.85.

Elsewhere, banking shares hogged the limelight on persistent speculative-cum-investment buying on expectation of more merger plans to come forth. Yesterday, the Reserve Bank of India had given in-principle, approval to the proposed merger of Bank of India with Union Bank of India. Consolidation in banking sector would give advantage to PSU banks, a broker said. IT shares, however, remained weak on reports that Infosys Technologies has cautioned about the sustainability of its profit margins or levels of profitability.

The company made these comments in the U.S., reports Crisil MarketWire.

The broad-based BSE-100 index recovered by 20.60 points to 3499.50.

PTI

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