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Upbeat sentiment spreads cheer, pushes Nifty up 30 points; 868.70

Share prices zoomed up further on good buying support from bull operators on the National Stock Exchange witnessing an upbeat sentiment with brisk trading today.

The smart recovery of the rupee by about 68 paise to Rs 42.82/92 against the US dollar, after the Reserve Bank of India' s announcement of a number of monetary measures, changed the market sentiment and encouraged heavy short-covering. In the Bombay Stock Exchange, the Sensex shot up sharply by 105 points.

Mirroring the uptrend, the S&P CNX Nifty shot up by 30.40 points to 868.70 points against 838.30 points of the previous day. The CNX Nifty Junior went up by 38.50 points to 1484.35 points from 1445.85 points while the S&P CNX Defty moved up by 35.90 points to 702.85 points from 666.95 points. The S&P CNX 500 improved by 17.01 points to 596.02 points from 579.01 and the CNX Midcap 200 gained 15.10 points to 523.74 points from 508.64 points.

The total turnover, involving 59.12 million shares in 209,164 trades was Rs 142.05 billion and the debenture traded value was Rs 672,000.

About 613 securities gained, 225 declined and 92 remained unchanged. More than 35 securities hit their price bands today.

Foreign institutional investors continued to be net sellers. The sold shares were worth Rs 291.56 million against their lower investment of 102.03 million, showing a moderate outflow of Rs 189.52 million from the market.

ITC registered the highest turnover of Rs 2.91 billion, followed by Satyam Computers (Rs 2.35 billion), Reliance (Rs 1.27 billion), SBI (Rs 1.05 billion), Pentafour Software (Rs 1.01 billion), Zee Telefilms (Rs 683 million), Tata Tea (Rs 308.1 million), ACC (Rs 278.8 million), Telco (Rs 255.1 million), Castrol (Rs 240.8 million), Infosys Tech (Rs 230.5 million), BHEL (Rs 211.1 million) and Hindustan Lever (Rs 202.4 million).

The other actively traded counters were: Dr Reddy's (Rs 195 million), HCL-HP (Rs 186.1 million), L&T (Rs 169.7 million), Gujarat Ambuja Cement (Rs 162.5 million), Silverline (Rs 152.3 million), Colgate (Rs 145.6 million), MTNL (Rs 123.6 million), BFL Software (Rs 110.4 million), Tisco (Rs 108.3 million), Rolta (Rs 95.2 million), German Remedies (Rs 80.7 million) and Software Solutions International (Rs 77 million).

Reliance recorded the highest gain of 7.99 per cent to Rs 118.25, followed by Reliance Capital by 7.48 per cent to Rs 43.85, MTNL by 5.95 per cent to Rs 186.95, BHEL 5.77 per cent to Rs 225.35 and ITC 5.63 per cent to Rs 613.10.

HDFC Bank suffered the highest lost of 1.35 per cent to Rs 62.05, followed by Cochin Refineries 1.19 per cent to Rs 220.75 and Asian Paint 0.30 per cent to Rs 315.60.

The wholesale debt market of NSE witnessed trades worth Rs 3.36 billion. The 11.55 per cent government loan maturing in 2001 was actively traded for Rs 1.35 billion at a weighted yield of 11.73 per cent. The 12.50 per cent government stock maturing in 2004 was traded for Rs 350 million at a weighted yield of 11.86 per cent.

The certificate of deposit issued by the ICICI, maturing on March 18, 1999 was traded for Rs 250 million at a yield of 12.62 per cent. A repo trade worth Rs 100 million was traded at a rate of 13.50 per cent for a repo term of 8 days. The turnover in debentures was Rs 310,000.

UNI