Pivotals Rally In The Wake Of Fresh Institutional Support

Speculatives rallied smartly on the Bombay Stock Exchange yesterday, lifting the Sensex by over 57 points in the wake of all-round speculative support and persistent buying from financial institutions.

Tata shares, particularly Tisco, Telco and ACC, attracted good buying support reportedly from the group finance firms in a bid to increase their stake in the respective companies. Domestic institutions, led by the UTI and LIC, picked up scrips like Tisco, Telco, RIL, SBI and GE Shipping among others.

Marketmen also attributed the change in the sentiment to the absence of selling pressure from FFIs, who were reported to have bought blue chip shares like HLL and Castrol. The BSE Sensex, spurted to a high of 3,444.92 in pre-close trading, later it reacted to close at 3,424.87 gaining 57.30 points. The BSE-100 advanced by 23.94 points to 1,489.85 from the previous 1,465.91. Market sources said in view of last day of the current NSE settlement, the Sensex lost about 20 points at the final stage on hedging by the NSE dealers.

Bull operators were expected to enlarge their positions at lower levels, with FIIs giving up sales, as the present situation was likely to lead to good gains for the speculators next month. On the political situation, a leading dealer said the market could rally further if the operators get some indication of a stable government. The BSE-200 and the Dollex were quoted up at 3,32.59 and 140.40 compared with the last close of 328.04 and 137.95 respectively.

Tata Tea was the most active scrip with a turnover of Rs 168.47 crore of the total volume of business of Rs 805.98 crore. Other active scrips were ITC (Rs 152.79 crore), SBI-new (Rs 115.63 crore), RIL (Rs 91.83 crore) and Castrol (Rs 58.94 crore). Tata Tea flared up by 21.25 to 392. ITC was fractionally up at 559.50 from previous close of 559.25 and RIL was at 155.50.