Sensex recovers 37 pts

MUMBAI, January 13: Pivotals shed early gains on the Bombay Stock Exchange today mainly on selling by the foreign fund and profit taking at ...

MUMBAI, January 13: Pivotals shed early gains on the Bombay Stock Exchange today mainly on selling by the foreign fund and profit taking at the higher level. Sensex recovered 37 points. Resuming better, share prices rallied during the earlier part of the session due to short covering prompted by recovery trend in Hong Kong and other Asian markets. However, brisk selling by the FIIs, industrials declined towards the end. The volume of business remained better.

The BSE sensitive index dropped from the intra-day high of 3479.95 to finish at 3431.72 with a small gain of 36.68 points compared to the previous level of 3395.04. The BSE-100 index gained 14.09 points to 1493.03. Brokers said that trading sentiment was better during the earlier part of the session mainly on emergence of short covering.

After the mid-session the FIIs led by Jardine Fleming and Peregrine India, pressed heavy sales in a bid to make up their losses in the South East Asian markets. The domestic FIs purchased small lots of shares of key scrips at the fag end of the session. The volume of business remained brisk at Rs 1042.20 crore. On NSE, pivotals recovered moderately on speculative support for squaring up positions on the last day of the current settlement.

However, the market failed to close at the day’s best levels on profit taking at higher levels. Seventy four securities had hit their price bands today. The NSE-50 index opened at 995.70 and closed at 999.10, with a moderate rise of 3.30 points. The Defty opened at 865.40 and closed at 867.80, showing a minor gain of 1.35 points. The Midcap opened at 1129.00 and closed at 1130.75, with a modest rise of 1.75 points. The total turnover was Rs 1,403.10 crore.