Sensex moves in narrow groove

MUMBAI, NOV. 28. The Sensex notched up modest gains of 6.55 points to close at 3294.12 at the Bombay Stock Exchange today, propelled by a sharp rise in software major, Infosys in a market generally quiet and dominated by profit-sellers.

Infosys technologies bucked the general weak trend and registered handsome gains compelling the index to land in positive terrain, dealers said.

Most of the other new economy shares reacted downwards on profit- taking by foreign institutional investors on the back of overnight losses at Nasdaq. The Nasdaq composite index was down by over five points last night.A sharp downswing in the south- east Asian markets also affected the initial firm sentiment. The Nikkei tumbled by 324.08 points, the Hang Seng by 195.35 points and Singapore ST index by 25.57 points at close.

The BSE-30 share sensitive index opened slightly better at 3289.70 and was trapped in a very narrow range of 3322.52 and 3283.08 before closing mildly higher at 3294.12 as against yesterday's close of 3287.57.

The broad-based BSE-100 index, however, declined by 8.20 Points to 1564.93 from the previous finish of 1573.13.

Cement stocks continued to strengthen on investment cum speculative buying on expectation of increase in off-take.

Auto shares such as Bajaj Auto, TVS Suzuki, M&M and Telco were the other few that attracted brisk buying support.Meanwhile, profit-booking by operators halted the recent rally in second- rung software counters.

Though the Sensex closed in positive terrain, 103 shares from specified group registered losses while 62 others closed with gains.

The BSE-200 index and the Dollex-200 were quoted modestly down at 344.05 and 119.33 against yesterday's close of 345.63 and 119.93. The BSE-500 index also eased by 5.68 points to 1016.29 from 1021.97 previously.

- PTI

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Section  : Business
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