Tata Steel, Acc Firm Up On Speculative Buying

Tata Steel and ACC were in the limelight in the new account trading, attracting a smart rally in the share prices with the Sensex gaining by another 36.33 points on the stock market yesterday following fresh speculative activity and buying from general investors.

However, mutual funds, financial institutions and foreign institutional investors (FIIs) were conspicuous by their absence due to a public holiday on account of Ramzan Eid.

The BSE sensitive index started better at 3413.88 and later rose sharply to 3457.29 before settling at 3443.55 as against its last Fridays close of 3407.22. The BSE-100 index improved further by 14.02 points to 1503.20 from its previous close of 1489.18.

The trading pattern had been more or less same as in the previous few days with operators picking up a select few scrips like Tata Steel, ACC, Bajaj Auto, Grasim, Hindalco, Hind Lever, L&T, ITC, SBI (new) and Reliance Ind. Operators were expecting the major economic package assured by the prime minister, H D Deve Gowda last month, to revive the capital market in the forthcoming Union budget. Brokers felt the government might not announce the package before the budget though Gowda had assured onseveral occasions last month that it would initiate further economic reforms and give a major economic package for the capital market. They attributed the rally in prices to expectations of good reliefs to the industry in the budget.

Leading brokers said that due to the Chinese new year holiday foreign stock exchanges at Singapore and Hong Kong were closed, which restricted inflow of FII investment in the Indian capital market. However, domestic institutions like Hinduja and Reliance Industries bought considerable numbers of heavy weighted shares, they added.