Sensex recovers from early low on hectic shortcovering

MUMBAI, APRIL 20. The benchmark bounced back from its early low and closed above the 4632 support level reflecting a late sharp recovery in shares on the Bombay Stock Exchange today following hectic shortcovering on the back of aggressive purchases by institutional investors.

For the second successive day, the Sensex has put up a strong resistance to close below the support level of 4632, giving rise to hopes of a short rally in the next settlement. The market would crash further if the Sensex broke this level, dealers said.

The BSE sensitive index opened weak at 4561.07 and later tumbled to the day's low of 4431.74. However, a sharp price rally after midsession aided the Sensex to close at 4657.42 over yesterday's close of 4665.81, showing a net loss of 8.39 points. The BSE-100 index eased by 1.99 points to 2498.82 from 2500.81.

The major relief to the Sensex came from impressive gains by Reliance, Infosys, Hindalco and BSES.

The reason for infotech stocks being continuously the worst hit was that a syndicate of bears were targeting them selectively, allegedly on the reckoning that a leading bull had high holdings in these counters.

The market got a respite when financial institutions and foreign institutional investors made heavy purchases in software scrips such as Pentamedia Graphic, Digital Equipment, Infosys, Satyam Computers and some cyclicals.

Reliance stole the limelight in the latter part on sizable interested buying support. Of the 117 losers in the specified group, nine counters including five IT scrips were locked in the lower end of the circuit filter at close. Reliance hit the upper price band.

The BSE-200 index and the Dollex were quoted down at 534.31 and 203.84 against 536.48 and 204.62 respectively. The BSE-500 index moved down by 12.44 points to 1610.96 from 1623.40.

Satyam Computer remained the most active scrip with a turnover of Rs. 455.77 crores of the total volume of business of Rs. 2,338.04 crores. Other top traded shares were Reliance (Rs. 423.72 crores), Infosys (Rs. 375.53 crores), NIIT (Rs. 76.84 crores) and SSI (Rs. 64.05 crores).

- PTI

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Section  : Business
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