Sensex up 48 points on tech stocks rally

MUMBAI, JULY 11, Led by IT bellwether Infosys Technologies, select key counters rallied smartly lifting the Sensex by another 48 points on the Bombay Stock Exchange today following sustained buying support from operators on the back of fresh purchases by foreign institutional investors.

The market discounted a sharp downslide in Wall Street yesterday and heavyweights such as Infosys, Ranbaxy, Reliance Industries, Hindustan Lever, Satyam Computers and ACC were in keen demand as FIIs stepped their activity heartened by continual flow of encouraging corporate news.

The BSE sensitive index opened steady at 3328.37 and later rallied smartly to the day's high of 3388.75 before closing at 3376.21 against yesterday's close of 3328.27, a net rise of 47.94 points. The BSE-100 index also improved by 14.75 points to 1578.35 from 1563.56.

On the heels of excellent performance by Infosys, Satyam Computer and Ranbaxy also came out with impressive first quarter working. Another IT major Satyam Computer announced growth in its net profit by 141.15 per cent in the first three months of the current fiscal at Rs. 121.46 crores over Rs. 50.37 crores achieved in the corresponding last year.

The Dow Jones industrial average dipped by over 123 points and the Nasdaq composite index by about 64 points to below the psychological barrier of 2,000 yesterday after an announcement by Corning last Monday that it would cut 1,000 jobs, warning that the second-half results were likely to come out below current Wall Street expectations.

Wipro suffered a setback due to selling induced by reports of profit warnings by the company citing U.S. slowdown as the reason as the U.S. market accounts for nearly 64 per cent of its global IT services revenue.

Nineteen index-based counters including heavyweights such as Infosys, HLL, BHEL, RIL and Telco scored handsome gains while others showed fractional downward changes.

The BSE-200 and the Dollex were quoted up at 347.69 and 122.75 against 344.93 and 121.77 respectively. The BSE-500 moved up by 7.24 points to 1023.10 from 1015.86.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Business
Previous : Reliance edged out of latest cellular bids
Next     : UTI defers decision again on US-64 bailout package