Equities bounce back on institutional buying

MUMBAI, MARCH 14. After three sessions of mayhem when the Sensex plunged by 516 points, there was a sigh of relief today as it bounced back by 184 points on the Bombay Stock Exchange on the back of aggressive purchases by Indian financial institutions (IFIs) and Indian mutual funds (IMFs).

All the IFIs and IMFs were heavy buyers at the behest of the Government, which in turn, attracted other players including foreign institutional investors (FIIs) to join the bandwagon, market dealers said.

The mood was also upbeat as the Nasdaq composite index and the Dow Jones industrial average spurted by 91 points and 82 points respectively yesterday.

Cement shares cornered the limelight, scoring sharp gains on hectic buying support at low levels prompted by bright prospects for the infrastructure industry.

After a weak start at 3508.13, the BSE sensitive index later staged a smart recovery and gradually moved upwards to the day's high of 3757.12 before closing at 3725.03 against 3540.65, scoring a sharp rise of 184.38 points or 5.21 per cent. The BSE- 100 also recovered sharply by 96.87 points to 1774.89 from 1678.02.

Discounting a flutter created on the bourses yesterday by a fictitious defence deal expose by a portal that threatened to have far-reaching political implications, operators and speculators returned for normal trading as heavy purchases by institutions injected fresh confidence in the broking fraternity.

Operators and speculators were also satisfied that a key outside ally of NDA disapproved the demand for resignation of the coalition government, ruling out any political uncertainty at the Centre, dealers added.

In the specified group, 60 counters hit 8 per cent upper circuit filter. Only 12 shares showed losses.

The BSE-200 and the Dollex were quoted up at 383.40 and 136.71 against 363.75 and 129.93 respectively. The BSE-500 also rose by 56.28 points to 1128.62 from 1072.34.

The volume of business was still low at Rs. 1,651.99 crores.

- PTI

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