The Hindu : Business : Bourses start new year with a bang

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jan 04, 2005

Business

Business

Bourses start new year with a bang

MUMBAI, JAN. 3. Led by the gas sector, stocks rallied sharply lifting the Sensex to a new record peak at 6679.20 bolstered by strong inflow of foreign institutional investments and continued downtrend in inflation.

Extending its gains to second straight session, the BSE benchmark 30-share index touched a new life-time intra-trade high of 6684.77 before ending at 6679.20 against last Friday's close of 6602.69, a net rise of 76.51 points or 1.16 per cent.

Foreign institutional investors, who have pumped in over $9 billion in 2004, the biggest net investments in any calendar year, were believed to be heavy buyers in blue chip counters, including a few heavy weighted ones.

The fall in inflation number for the fourth consecutive week too had sentimental impact on the market. The market completely discounted news of Anil Ambani's resignation during trading hours, as Vice Chairman and Director from the Reliance group company, Indian Petrochemical Corporation Ltd.

Despite Christmas holidays, during which foreign investors normally slowed down their activity, the FIIs reported net investments of Rs. 579.60 crores in the first four sessions last week.

POSITIVE START: A stock exchange dealer in Mumbai scanning stock movements. The market started the new year with optimism with the Sensex gaining 76 points. — Photo: Paul Noronha

Gas shares such as IPCL, ONGC, Petronet, Indraprastha Gas, GAIL and Gujarat Gas scored impressive gains.

RIL, REL, HDFC Bank, BHEL, Hero Honda, Hindalco, Bharti Tele-Ventures, Bajaj Auto, Tata Motors, Maruti Udyog, HPCL and Infosys Technologies recorded hefty gains.

Telcom and auto sectors too attracted investors' attention and closed with remarkable gains.

The broad-based BSE-100 index rose by another 48.83 points to 3629.07.

The volume of business rose sharply to Rs. 2,321.58 crores from Rs. 2,082.40 crores last Friday. RIL clocked the highest turnover of Rs. 158.38 crores followed by SBI (Rs. 77.87 crores), Tata Steel (Rs. 66.39 crores), Tata Motors (Rs. 65.79 crores) and IPCL (Rs. 46.50 crores).

The BSE-200 and the Dollex-200 were quoted up at 900.80 and 343.90 against 886.55 and 338.69 respectively. The BSE-500 improved by 46.30 points to 2825.95 and the Dollex-30 to 1257.42 from 1243.87.

In the specified group, 160 including 28 index-based scrips registered sharp to moderate gains. — PTI

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

Business

News Update

Stories in this Section