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Sensex touches 52-week high as FIIs resume buying; up 138 points to 4014.68

Equities were on an uptrend as the Sensitive Index of the Bombay Stock Exchange gained handsomely by more than 135 points.

The Sensex touched a 52-week high, crossing the psychological barrier of 4,000 points, as the foreign institutional investors continued their buying spree.

The market touched the highest point since the dissolution of the Lok Sabha and has gained by 741.97 points in the last 12 trading sessions, with the exception of yesterday when the Sensex was on a minor downhill road.

The FIIs ruled the market and the local bull operators were nowhere on the scene except a few counters. They were thoroughly overshadowed by the Rs 1 billion financial input of the FIIs.

''Since the last 12 sessions, the FIIs have bought shares to the tune of Rs 8 billion-Rs 10 billion,'' leading dealers said and hoped that the trend will continue for a few days more.

It was on May 8, 1998 that the Sensex had jumped to 4022.20 points. Nearly a year later, it has shown a high of 4014.68 points, where it finally closed for the day.

The Sensex opened on a high note at 3957.25 points and steadied at a higher level due to overnight excessive buying. It then reached a day's high of 4022.08 points on continuous support of the FIIs but did not go below its opening level.

Finally, after a busy day, it ended at 4014.68 points to register a gain of 137.79 points as compared to its yesterday's close of 3876.89 points.

The S&P CNX Nifty Index too mirrored the same trend and recorded a gain of 37.20 points for the day, closing at 1148.10 points as compared to its yesterday's close of 1110.90 points.

Buying at the BSE continued on major counters like State Bank of India, ACC, Larsen and Toubro, Telco, Tisco and Reliance by the FIIs while locals had a considerably quiet day.

The BSE-100 followed the leader, and opened on a higher note at 1707.01 points and continued its uphill motion to touch a day's high of 1731.29 points and a low of 1705.54 points.

It finally closed at 1728.44 points registering an overall gain of 51.61 points.

The BSE-200 and Dollex indices also rose systematically and ended 10.77 and 4.19 points higher at 389.79 and 151.80 points from its previous close of 379.02 and 147.61 points respectively.

The number of scrips traded for the day were 1,583 of the total number of 198,773 trades. The volume of shares traded was Rs 64.1 million and the turnover was Rs 16.13 billion.

In the 'A' group, Satyam Computers topped the list with Rs 1.57 billion followed by Pentafour Software Rs 1.41 billion, Reliance Rs 1.17 billion, ITC Rs 1.14 billion, SBI Rs 1.07 billion, Ranbaxy Rs 984.8 million, Tata Tea Rs 692.4 million, L&T Rs 682.4 million, ACC Rs 528.6 million, MTNL Rs 526.4 million, Tisco Rs 475.7 million, Telco Rs 460.9 million, Zee Telefilms Rs 361.2 million, Dr Reddy's Rs 292 million and Infosys Technologies Rs 259.5 million.

On the other hand the 'B' counter had Silverline Industries as the top grosser at 123.1 million followed by Rolta Industies Rs 72.6 million, Global Telesystems Rs 35.2 million, Cipla Limited Rs 30.5 million, DSQ Software Rs 30.4 million, SSI Limited Rs 27.8 million, Morepen Labs Rs 21.4 million, HCL Infosys Technologies Rs 19.3 million, India Cements Rs 16.1 million, Pentafour Communications Rs 15.4 million, Reliance Petroleum Rs 14.9 million, Amara Raja Batteries Rs 12.5 million, Himachal Futuristic Communications Rs 12.5 million, Fujitsu Rs 10.9 million and Tata Finance Rs 8.5 million.

UNI

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