The majority of leaders participated in the upturn but the recently active software scrips remained subdued for want of fresh support.

Reflecting the price improvement in key scrips, the CSE's 40-share index posted gains to close at the best level of the day at 1633.90, the lowest being 1605.36 points. Leading the uptrend, Reliance counter wound up at Rs 119.90 on hectic support while TELCO extended recent gains to Rs 126.60 with TISCO finishing a shade higher at Rs.86.90, L&T closed with perceptible gains at Rs 149, ACC at Rs 949, ITC at Rs 705.20 and SBI at Rs 155.80 with Castrol held at Rs 622.90, IPCL at Rs 62.30, ICICI at Rs 44.10 and Grasim at Rs 149. But Bata eased to Rs 201.70, Hind Lever to Rs 1639 and Satyam Computer to Rs 577.10.

Demat trades worth Rs 28.79 crore: A total of 11.06 lakh shares ofthe value of Rs.28.79 crore was traded at the demat segments of both NSE and BSE together on Friday, according to press release of NEST. On the NSE, MTNL traded one share valued Rs 0.002 lakh in one trade, TVS Suzuki and ITC traded 63,000 and 118 shares valued Rs 378.00 and Rs 0.84 crore, respectively in four trades each, again Hero Honda traded 63,000 shares valued Rs 341.62 crore in seven trade, and VSNL traded 21,000 shares valued at Rs 148.47 crore in a single trade.