Cement stocks move up: Cement stocks moved up on news that cement production was up 9.2 per cent in February at 70.45 lakh tonnes from 60.82 lakh a year earlier. Cement sales in February was up 12.9 per cent at 70.54 lakh tonnes from 60.68 lakh last year. In the first 11 months of the current fiscal, cement output stood at 72.9 million tonnes, up 5.8 per cent from 6.89 crore in the same period last year. In the same period, sales were 68.7 million tonnes, up 6.24 per cent from 64.6 crore last year. ACC was up at Rs 1286, GACL was up at Rs 294.50 andMadras Cements was up at Rs 3750 on the BSE.

Institutional Activity: Credit Suisse First Boston is rumoured to have bought 2.5 lakh shares of Pentafour Software on Tuesday and 3 lakh shares are rumoured have been picked up by Morgan Stanley on Wednesday which is going to pick up this stock for the next two days also. The stock of SBI is in great demand with Credit Lyonnaise picking up close to 40 lakh shares Wednesday and Tuesday and is rumoured to have picked it up for Fidelity Investments. Warburg Pincus is rumoured to have given fresh buying orders for Hoechst Marion Russel and Credit Suisse First Boston is rumoured to have bought 5 lakh shares of MTNL and is buying Hoechst Marion Russel. Allianze Capital is rumoured to be buying Nestle. The Gorge Soros fund is buying Gujarat Gas and there was still a pending order of 1.5 lakh shares on this counter. The shopping list of UTI consisted of 1.5 lakh ITC, 25,000 HLL and is continuing buying in information technology stocks.

MTNL receives adrubbing: The MTNL stock took a beating today even as the rationalisation of tariff system was annnounced with an upside of around 7-10 per cent growth in earnings from current levels. ``There was selling today because people are not clear how they are going to implement the new changes and push them through.'' The scrip went up from Rs 160 to touch Rs 190 and on profit taking eased off.

Banking take a beating: The State Bank of India which was on a solid bull run for the last 4 days halted its upward movement but was on the lower circuit at Rs 207 today. In sympathy to the fall in SBI other banking stocks also took a beating which had been rising in consonance with SBI namely Bank of BAroda, Corporation Bank and HDFC which were all on the lower circuit and the fall in SBI has led to the total sentiment fall for the sector, sadi a broker.

Refineries gain: Refinery stocks were back on Wednesday as most of them notched up with HPCL at Rs 206, BPCL at Rs 214, Reliance Petroleum at Rs 18.05were all up from their previous close."The market feels that all the refinery stocks are under valued at current prices and the fact of the change in bureaucratic thinking towrads PSUs, as most of these are in the PSU sector, has led the stocks prices to gain momentum, said fund managers.

Contributed by Parul Monga