Mumbai, Dec 8: The market ended on a firm note on Friday mainly on the back of allround buying and short covering on the last day of settlement on Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). The benchmark BSE sensex was up by more than 31 points while NSE's S&P CNX Nifty also gained about 11 points. There has been continuous rise in the benchmark index during the week when it has posted a total gain of 125 points. Sensex opened almost 10 points higher at 4134.10 level in the morning when compared to Thursday's close of 4124.91 points which also happened to be an intra-day low. It moved up further on sustained buying from all quarters and short covering to touch the day's high of 4167.32 points before closing at 4156.08 points, a gain of 31.17 points. S&P CNX Nifty also gained 11.20 points and closed at 1313.70 as compared to last close of 1302.50 points.Khandwala Securities, chief dealer Devang Dhruv said market closed on a firm note with good volumes being witnessed in second rung old economy stocks. These are all midCap stocks and rising volumes in these stocks is a good sign which indicates that the rally to follow would be broadbased, he said.
GNFC counter attracted trading volume of 13.50 lakh shares, Indo Gulf Corporation counter traded more than 10 lakh shares, while PSU counters like Bharat Electronics, Bharat Earthmovers Limited (BEML) and IPCL also attracted volumes of more than 3 lakh shares at BSE on friday.
Second rung stocks in specified list which witnessed rising trend included Bausch & Lomb, MRF, Escorts, Titan Ind, Tata Elxsi and Wartsila NSD. Brokers are of the view that investors have started identifying good value stocks which were hitherto ignored in craze for new economy IT stocks. Dealers feel that the undertone of the market is bullish and it may witness a rally of about of 300-400 points in short term. In sensex stocks, MTNL gained 4.23 per cent to close at Rs 176.05, Satyam surged ahead by another 4.19 per cent again on heavy volume of more than one crore shares to close at Rs 375.65, Bhel gained more than three per cent to close at Rs 151.40 and ICICI Ltd close to three per cent to end at Rs 97.50.
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