Sensex nets marginal gain

MUMBAI, JULY 1: Equities displayed a mixed pattern of trading today with a majority of counters losing sharp to moderate ground but a few...

MUMBAI, JULY 1: Equities displayed a mixed pattern of trading today with a majority of counters losing sharp to moderate ground but a few select index heavy-weights registered handsome gains in the wake of fresh purchases from the FIIs.

FIIs were reportedly net buyers in key scrips like HLL, SBI, NIIT, Hindalco, Infosys Technologies and Tisco. Indian financial institutions IFIs and domestic mutual funds, however, pressed sales in the stocks accumulated during the last few sessions, to book profits.

The BSE Sensitive index opened better at 4156.62 and was later trapped in a limited range of 4186.35 and 4120.73 before closing at 4144.52 as against yesterday8217;s close of 4140.73, netting a small rise of 3.79 points. The BSE-100 index, however, eased by 7.21 points to 1783.30 from the previous close of 1790.51.

Dealers said speculators were not interested in enlarging their positions in the prevailing situation in the border areas despite some positive factors like reports of gradual revival of economy andgood growth in exports that had gone up by 11.68 per cent in May 1999 over the corresponding month of the last year.

Market sources also attributed the smart gains in SBI to hectic shortcovering ahead of no-delivery period beginning from new account on Monday in this scrip.

Fertiliser counters surrendered their recent dominance on institutional selling at higher level.

In the software sector, NIIT remained stagnant at the daily upper limit of eight per cent right from the resumption of trading. CESC Ltd was the other scrip which hit the upper band. However, Trent Ltd Lakme dropped sharply to hit the lower circuit breaker.

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Of the 148 traded specified scrips, 117 registered losses and only 29 gained while two remained unchanged.

The BSE-200 index and the Dollex were quoted marginally down at 407.79 and 156.51 compared with previous close of 409.56 and 157.26 respectively.

RIL clocked the highest turnover of Rs 117.15 crore of the total volume of business of Rs 1103.36 crore down from Rs 1219.69crore posted yesterday. Other actively traded scrips were Ranbaxy Rs 94.58 crore, Satyam Computer Rs 87.12 crore, Pentafour Software Rs 73.06 crore and SBI Rs 72.81 crore.