The Hindu : Business : Sensex zooms 212 points

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jan 20, 2006

Business

Business

Sensex zooms 212 points

Encouraging quarterly results and FIIs' positive activity bolstered sentiment

MUMBAI: The Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark index (Sensex) on Thursday bounced back and zoomed by 212 points, the biggest single day rise since September 26, 2005 in relatively low volume trade.

Crediting the strong pull-back rally after the 400-point correction to announcements of encouraging quarterly results as well as across-the-board buying support, brokers said the market witnessed all-round buying on the back of FIIs positive activity after a week-long negative activity.

The BSE benchmark 30-share index started firm at 9271.63 and gradually moved upwards to the intra-day high of 9473.86 before closing at 9449.84 against 9237.57, a net gain of 212.31 points or 2.29 per cent.

The FIIs and domestic mutual funds were believed to be heavy buyers in shares from all the segments while operators and retail investors made hectic short covering ahead of the expiry of the Futures contract on January 25.

Sentiment was bolstered by better-than-expected third quarter results released by L&T, Wipro, HDFC and Reliance Capital.

Having adjusted to a downward correction in the last six days, the market is expected to surpass the magic 10,000-level before the budget, brokers said.

Shares of Jet Airways hogged the limelight shooting up by Rs. 70.10 to Rs. 1,198.80 following the company's acquisition of Sahara Airlines. However, late profit taking trimmed the gains and the scrip ended at Rs. 1,149.90 against Rs. 1,128.70.

Metal, IT, Capital Goods and PSU shares witnessed brisk activity and scored impressive gains. The small-cap and mid-cap indices too flared up by 179.42 points and 101.12 points to 6255.45 and 4660.47 respectively.

The broad-based BSE-100 index soared 101.08 points to 5002.02. The BSE-200 and the Dollex 200 were quoted up at 1201.59 and 450.98 against 1177.74 and 442.52 respectively. The BSE-500 rose by 77.93 points to 3859.09 and the Dollex-30 ended higher at 1748.95 against 1711.58.

The volume of business dipped sharply to Rs. 3,629.00 crore from Rs. 5,205.25 crore. RIL continued to be the top traded scrip with the highest turnover of Rs. 323.18 crore followed by ONGC (Rs. 174.98 crore), Reliance Capital (Rs. 89.13 crore), Titan Industries (Rs. 82.27 crore) and SBI (Rs. 79.01 crore). — PTI

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