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The market opened on a weak note and suddenly took upward direction on renewed buying support from the Unit Trust of India, Life Insurance Corporation of India and a few FIIs, dealers said.

Sensex rebounds by 221 points

Reflecting the bullish phase, the 30-share BSE Sensex opened at 4254.85 points, sharply lower from the previous close of 4270.74 points, touched a low of 4209.41 points, surpassed the 4,400 mark, soared to the day's high of 4494.76 points, before closing at 4491.56 points, showing a net gain of 220.82 points from the previous close.

The broad-based BSE-100 National Index also registerd a smart recovery of 114.58 points at 2089.69 points from the previous close of 1975.11 points.

The S&P CNX Nifty Index at the National Stock Exchange too posted a gain of about 60 points following strong recovery in share prices at the last day of current trading cycle.

Several shares hit upper limit

Most of the pivotals hit the upward circuit by registering 8 per cent gains on sustained buying support from institutional investors.

Ranbaxy, Satyam Computer Services, Infosys Technologies, Himachal Futuristic, Zee Telefilms, Global Telesystems and Reliance were at the forefront in today's rally, dealers said.

Market sources said that the UTI had reportedly pumped in Rs 2 billion and the LIC Rs 1 billion into the market. The FIIs lent selective support. This collectively gave an upturn to what has come to be a bearish market. The market witnessed a bearish phase for last couple of weeks resulting in an erosion of 16 per cent loss in the BSE Sensex during October 11-31.

Reflecting the remarkable recovery, the BSE-200 and Dollex indices also advanced by 26.42 and 1.84 points to 487.90 and 187.12 points as against the previous close of 461.48 and 185.28 points respectively.

The BSE-500 index rose by 77.24 points to 1458.04 points from the previous close of 1380.80 points.

FIIs who were net sellers for last three months made heavy buying in select and fundamentally strong scrips, analysts said.

Day's bull run surprises analysts

Today's bull run surprised even the market analysts as everybody was of the view that market may continue the downtrend in view of the last day of weekly trading settlement at the NSE. However, the heavy buying support from domestic institutional investors changed the market mood from bearish to bullish, dealers said.

Business volume on the BOLT system also improved sharply by Rs 7.91 billion to Rs 26.47 billion from yesterday's turnover of Rs 18.56 billion.

Media giant Zee Telefilms stood first in the list of turnover by registering highest turnover of Rs 3.06 billion, followed by Ranbaxy Rs 2.46 billion, Satyam Computers Rs 2.09 billion, Reliance Rs 1.73 billion and Silverline Rs 1.27 billion.

Other actively traded counters were Global Telesystems (Rs 1.23 billion), Pentafour Software (Rs 1.17 billion), SBI (Rs 984.8 million), L&T (Rs 782.3 million), Digital Equipment (Rs 733.6 million), Infosys Technologies (Rs 657.9 million), Himachal Futuristic Communications Rs 517.2 million) and ITC Rs 500 million.

Rupee range-bound, steady at 43.40 to US $

The Indian rupee ruled in a narrow range of two paise and ended nearly steady at 43.3975/4025 against the greenback on a relatively dull interbank foreign exchange market today.

The rupee opened steady at 43.3950/4050, eased slightly to 43.4150 level in the morning on some corporate dollar demand, but inched up to close at 43.3975/4025, almost unchanged from the previous day's closing of 43.3950/4000.

Dealers said the market remained very dull today without any significant transactions as major market players did not actively participate in the market.

Forward premia eased slightly as call rates ruled lower around 8 per cent level due to confortable liquidity conditions in the money market. The sixth-month and yearly annualised premia closed marginally lower at 5.01 per cent and 5.23 per cent respectively as compared to 5.10 per cent and 5.25 per cent of the previous day.

Cash/spot and cash/tomorrow premia remained steady at 0.50-0.75 paise and 0.25-0.50 paise respectively. The month-wise premia in paise were: November 12-13, December 28-29, January 49-51, February 66-67, March 86-87 and April 105-106.

Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank of India fixed the reference rate for US dollar at Rs 43.41 as against Rs 43.38 of the previous day.

In the cross currency segment, the rupee closed stronger against pound sterling, euro and Japanese yen (100). Sterling finished at Rs 71.41 (71.50), euro at Rs 45.63 (45.83) and yen at 41.51 (41.69).

At the domestic money market, call rates ruled in a tight range between 7.95 and 8.05 per cent during the day and closed around 8 per cent.

UNI

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