COMMENTARY
INTERVIEWS
SPECIALS
CHAT
ARCHIVES

Pivotals drift, firm up; Nifty up five points, 845.75

Pivotals opened lower, after moving in a narrow range, firmed up marginally towards the end on good buying support from bull operators and domestic financial institutions on the last day of the currency settlement on the National Stock Exchange today.

Reflecting the uptrend, the S&P CNX Nifty Index gained by five points to 845.75 from 840.75 points of the previous day. The CNX Nifty Junior improved by 15.85 points to 1461.20 points from 1445.35 points, while the S&P CNX Defty edged up by 3.95 points to 691.25 points from 687.30 points. The S&P CNX 500 Index went up by 3.54 points to 585.66 points from 582.12 points and the CNX Midcap 200 Index looked up by 1.26 points to 519.34 points from 518.08 points.

The total turnover, involving 62.46 million shares in 210,094 trades was Rs 16.30 billion and the debenture traded value was Rs 9 million.

About 445 scrips gained, 495 declined and 92 remain unchanged. 57 securities have hit their price bands today.

East India Hotels registered the highest gain of 7.98 per cent to Rs 232.05, followed by Nestle by 7.30 per cent to Rs 440.50, Hindustan Lever 5.34 per cent to Rs 165.23, Gujarat Ambuja Cement 5.13 per cent to Rs 194.75 and Glaxo 4.92 per cent to Rs 455.40.

The BPCL suffered the highest loss of eight per cent to Rs 225.55, followed by Hindustan Petroleum 7.11 per cent to Rs 251.55, IDBI 5.97 per cent to Rs 43.35, SBI 5.44 per cent to Rs 174.85 and Great Eastern Shipping 5.41 per cent to Rs 20.10.

Foreign financial institutions sold shares worth Rs 492 million against their lower purchase for Rs 303 million indicating a net outflow of foreign exchange to the tune of Rs 188 million. However, the domestic institutions supported the market with their net purchase for Rs 243 million.

Satyam Computers registered the highest turnover of Rs 3.50 billion. The other actively traded counters were: ITC (Rs 2.93 billion), Zee Telefilms (Rs 1.45 billion), Pentafour Software (Rs 1.09 billion), SBI New (Rs 1.01 billion), Reliance (Rs 830.3 million), HCL-HP (Rs 628 million), Hindustan Lever (Rs 294.5 million), Castrol (Rs 287.4 million), Dr Reddy's (Rs 249.6 million), BHEL (Rs 234.2 million), BFL Software (Rs 218 million), Digital Equipment (Rs 215.6 million), Infosys Technologies (Rs 214.9 million), Tata Tea (Rs 192.3 million), MTNL (Rs 187.9 million), ACC (Rs 182.8 million), L&T (Rs 175.8 million), Bajaj Auto (Rs 119.2 million), Telco (Rs 113.5 million), Silverline (Rs 110.2 million), and Square D Software (Rs 101.8 million).

The wholesale debt market of the NSE witnessed trades worth Rs 2.24 billion. The zero coupon government bonds maturing in 1999 was traded for Rs 330 million at a weighted yield of 10.50 per cent. The 11.75 per cent government. Loan maturing in 2001 was traded for Rs 250 million at a weighted yield of 11.63 per cent. The commercial paper of Tisco maturing on October 29, 1998 was traded for Rs 100 million at a yield of 9.90 per cent. The total turnover in debentures was Rs 7.92 million.

UNI