COMMENTARY
INTERVIEWS
SPECIALS
CHAT
ARCHIVES

Heavy buying by FIIs pushes up Sensex by 120 pts

Frenzied buying by FIIs and heavy purchases by local operators in the index-based counters pushed up the sensitive index of the Bombay Stock Exchange by about 120 points today.

Encouraged by the United States's positive reaction towards India's action against the Pakistan-sponsored intruders in Kargil, the punters in the stock markets made heavy purchases after a dull start. There was also a rumour in the market that the US was sending a two-men mission to end the conflict, dealers said.

According to analysts, pivotals like the State Bank of India, Reliance, Telco were the front-runners in today's rally, rather than the current market favourite sectors of info-tech, pharma and FMCG.

Mirroring the trend, the 30-scrip Sensex opened at 3922.71 points, fell below the 3900 mark and touched the day's low 3876.56 points. However, it shot up to touch day's high of 4031.00 points at 1.30 pm and held steady at the higher level till the end of the day.

The Sensex closed at 4021.40 points, showing a net gain of 119.67 points from the previous close of 3901.73 points. The broad-based BSE-100 index gained sharply by 39.66 points to 1728.94 points from the previous close of 1689.28 points.

Vasudeo Joshi, assistant director of the Jardine Fleming AMC confirmed FIIs' heavy buying in pivotals and said FIIs have participated actively after a small gap following the United States's support to India's stand on the Kargil issue. ''The United State's positive attitude towards India would certainly put pressure on Pakistan and ultimately the issue may come to an end,'' Joshi opined.

He said the FIIs' focus would be on cyclical stocks in the coming days. Institutionalised deals were reported in BFL Software, Pentafour Software, Punjab Tractor, Reliance Petro, SAIL, SBI and NIIT. The BSE-200 and Dollex indices closed higher by 9.06 and 3.45 points to 394.29 and 151.99 points from the previous close of 385.23 and 148.51 points.

UNI

Business news