IT stocks surge ahead

MUMBAI, AUG. 3. Led by IT bellwether Infosys Technologies, IT stocks surged further pushing the Sensex up by another 27 points on the Bombay Stock Exchange on selective purchases by foreign institutional investors.

The BSE sensitive index opened at 3300.02 and gradually moved upwards to the day's high of 3337.79 before closing at 3325.38 against yesterday's close of 3298.78, netting a gain of 26.60 points or 0.81 per cent. The BSE-100 index also advanced further by 14.77 points to 1581.95 from the previous close of 1567.18.

Heartened by growing optimism that the growth of the semiconductor industry might rebound next year, FIIs stepped up their activity by making sizable purchases in a number of technology stocks.

On the hills of a series of rating upgrades of semiconductor stocks by Merrill Lynch on August 1, reports of some upbeat comments from Intel boosted the whole semiconductor sector on Wall Street helping the Nasdaq composite index to gain for the second successive day, market sources said.

In a range-bound trading, select heavyweights such as Reliance, ITC and Zee Telefilms suffered moderate setback mitigating the Sensex upsurge.

The sentiment was partly aided by the absence of selling pressure from domestic mutual funds.

FIIs were reportedly net buyers in IT stocks such as Infosys Technologies, Satyam Computer, SSI, Polaris Software, Global Telesystems and Dr. Reddy's.

Majority of second-line software stocks scored impressive gains on keen demand from institutional investors.

The BSE-200 index and the dollex were quoted remarkably up at 346.82 and 122.59 compared with previous close of 343.71 and 121.44 respectively.

The volume remained low but was relatively up at Rs. 1,002.56 crores against yesterday's turnover of Rs. 940.82 crores.

Satyam Computer was the top traded share with a turnover of Rs. 159.88 crores followed by Infosys and Reliance.

- PTI

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Section  : Business
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