Sensex up 77 points

MUMBAI, JULY 12. Powered by a fresh round of buying spree from foreign institutional investors, equities rallied further smartly lifting the Sensex by about another 77 points on the Bombay Stock Exchange today.

The FIIs, led by a leading foreign fund Morgan Stanley, were reportedly heavy buyers in a number of counters, particularly technology stocks, following announcements of stronger-than- expected first quarter results by key companies such as Infosys Technologies, Satyam Computer, Hughes Software and Ranbaxy Laboratories in the past couple of days.Even an announcement of encouraging performance by the cement major ACC surprised the market, leading to all round buying support. ACC turned black registering a net profit of Rs. 43.95 crores in the first quarter as against a net loss of Rs. 9.50 crores in the corresponding period last year.

Opening on a promising note at 3390.34, the BSE sensitive index gradually moved upwards to the intra-day high of 3459.37 before closing at 3452.75 against yesterday's close of 3376.21, a net gain of 76.54 points or 2.27 per cent.

The prominent index heavyweights such as Hindustan Lever, Infosys, Zee Telefilms, L&T, ACC, Grasim, Satyam Computer, Tisco and SBI scored impressive gains on consistent buying support.

A leading U.S. based foreign fund picked up about 50 lakh equity shares of Zee Telefilms alone, market sources said adding ``the promoters had placed chunk of these shares to partly meet the company's liabilities of over Rs. 200 crores".

Meanwhile, the Dow Jones industrial average and the Nasdaq composite index also showed partial recovery yesterday.

Reports that State Bank of India has agreed to provide Unit Trust of India a line of credit against collateral and that similar credit lines were being worked out with Corporation Bank and some others has also created optimistic situation for investors.

- PTI

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