Survey helps late recovery on BSE

MUMBAI, FEB. 28. Equities rallied smartly pushing the Sensex up by about 118 points on the opening day of the new account on the Bombay Stock Exchange today in the wake of late support from speculators and foreign institutional investors.

Barring moderate falls in only three index-based scrips such as Infosys Technologies, NIIT and Hindustan Lever which, in fact, recovered most of their losses at the fag end, there was virtual all-round buying spree, particularly led by shares of refinery, public sector enterprises (PSEs) and infrastructure sectors following indication that they would be benefitted by the Union Budget to be presented tomorrow. The indication came from the pre-budget Economic Survey that prescribed `hard decisions' like massive reduction in subsidies and debt to deal with the `daunting' fiscal deficit and predicted industrial recovery and also called for more reforms, especially in financial and labour sectors.

The BSE sensitive index opened on a strong footing at 5737.53 but later met with sustained resistance that pulled it to the intra- day low of 5580.05 at the initial stages. After announcement of the Economy Survey, it bounced back to close at the day's high of 5740.69 against last Friday's close of 5623.08, netting a rise of 117.61 points or 2.09 per cent. The BSE-100 index recovered smartly by 58.77 points to 3475.23 from 3416.46.

The FIIs, who had been consistent buyers in the current month, reportedly picked up sizeable chunk of shares of MTNL, Reliance, refinery stocks and some others. Domestic institutions, however, were seen booking profits at higher levels ahead of the Union Budget.

In the specified group, about 50 scrips including several economy stocks were locked in the upper circuit filter of the 110 gainers. Only 27 counters showed losses.

The BSE-200 index and the Dollex were quoted up at 746.73 and 285.01 against 733.41 and 279.87 respectively. The BSE-500 index rose by 38.25 points to 2261.86 from 2223.61.

Himachal Futuristic were the most active scrip with a turnover of Rs. 571.53 crores of the total volume of business of Rs. 4,020.60 crores. Other top traded shares were Satyam Computer (Rs. 460.99 crores), Zee Telefilms (Rs. 314.22 crores), Global Telefilms (Rs. 204.04 crores) and Reliance (Rs. 190.76 crores).

- PTI

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Section  : Business
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