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UTI, FIs buy with a vengeance; Sensex soars 89 points, 3008.63

Share prices climbed sharply at the Bombay Stock Exchange on the second consecutive day following aggressive buying by the Unit Trust of India lifting the Sensex up by 89 points to close at 3008.63 points today.

The Centre's intervention in the UTI's US-64 episode by sending finance minister's advisor Mohan Guruswamy to Bombay to take stock of situation and hectic buying by financial institutions helped to bring back confidence in the market.

Reports of a firm trend prevailing on the Asian stock markets also aided the sentiments, leading BSE brokers said.

UTI, which has already made investment of Rs 1.25 billion yesterday, continued its heavy buying today, brokers said. The leading financial institutions made purchases in the heavyweight scrips like Satyam Comuters, ITC, Hindustan Lever and some others.

Reflecting the bullish phase, the 30-scrip BSE Sensex opened at 2940.13 points, touched the day's high of 3010.65, day's low of 2939.62 points and finally ended at 3008.63 points showing a net gain of 88.89 points against the previous close of 2919.74 points.

After recording a major fall of 224 points on Monday, the Sensex recovered by 130 points in last two straight sessions. The broad-based BSE-100 index also rose by 40.26 points to 1343.11 points from the previous close of 1302.85 points.

The BSE-200 and Dollex indices rose by 8.84 and 3.33 points to 312.64 and 122.62 points from the previous close of 303.80 and 119.29 points respectively.

Total turnover on the BSE came down to Rs 156.55 billion from yesterday's turnover of Rs 176.84 billion. Out of 7,177 listed scrips, 1,341 were traded on the BOLT system in 150,609 trades, a BSE release said.

Satyam clocked the highest turnover of Rs 3.74 billion, followed by ITC Rs 2.98 billion, Zee Telefilms Rs 1.28 billion, Pentafour Software Rs 1.24 billion and SBI Rs 962.9 million.

Hectic activity was witnessed at other counters like Reliance (Rs 635.2 million), Dr Reddy's (Rs 437.7 million), Castrol (Rs 354 million), Infosys Tech (Rs 282.4 million), Hindustan Lever (Rs 23.75 crore), BHEL (Rs 229.7 million), Bajaj Auto (Rs 210.5 million), MTNL (Rs 198.6 million), Sterlite (Rs 150.9 million) and L&T (Rs 148.2 million).

Among the gainers, ACC earned Rs 39.75 to Rs 1054, Asian Hotels Rs 0.70 to Rs 148, BHEL Re 1 to Rs 302, BSES Rs 7.10 to Rs 154.90, Cadbury Rs 17.50 to Rs 386.50, Castrol Rs 40 to Rs 610.50, Dr Reddy's Rs 42.50 to Rs 497, Glaxo Rs 34 to Rs 468.50, Hero Honda Rs 6 to Rs 597, Hindalco Rs 32.50 to Rs 484.50, India Hotels gained by Rs 32.25 to Rs 372.75, Infosys Technology shot up Rs 112 to 2420, ITC Rs 61.50 to Rs 697.50, L&T Rs 4.80 to Rs 175, M&M Rs 6 to Rs 174, NIIT Rs 73 to Rs 1350, Pentafour Software Rs 30.50 to Rs 690.50, Ranbaxy Rs 12.75 to Rs 564.75, Satyam Computer Rs 63.50 to Rs 597, Telco up by Rs 4.80 to Rs 134.30, Tisco Rs 3.50 to Rs 88.50 and Zee Telefilms gained by Rs 47.50 to Rs 635.

UNI