Sensex makes small gain

Tuesday, June 24 1997

Sensex makes small gain

ENS ECONOMIC BUREAU

MUMBAI, June 23: After a better spell, pivotals declined slightly on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) today on profit-taking coupled with selling pressure by domestic financial institutions led by UTI. The session started better and select scrips like Reliance, Telco and Tata Chemicals advanced as the session progressed, but share prices turned subdued thereafter.

The BSE sensitive index started better at 4091.33 and gradually moved up to the intra-day high of 4120.63, before closing at 4089.20 with a small gain of 6.16 points compared to the pevious level of 4083.04. The BSE-100 index improved marginally by 5.98 points to 1759.25 from previous level of 1753.27.

Brokers said the new account commenced better following lower badla charges but share prices declined on selling pressure by financial institutions, mainly in Telco, Gujarat A Cement. Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) made negligible purchases in select heavy weight index scrips.

Finance Minister P Chidambaram's statement that petroleum price would be hiked shortly prompted fresh buying in petroleum shares like HPCL and BPCL.

The volume of business was considerably affected as the players were worried about the fallout of CBI filing chargesheet against Bihar Chief Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav in the Rs 950 crore fodder scam.

Reliance recorded highest turnover of Rs 230.61 crore of the total volume of business of Rs 777.19 crore. Other active scrips were TELCO (Rs 128.62 crore), SBI (Rs 110.14 crore), ITC (Rs 77.11 crore) and Tata Steel (Rs 40.38 crore). Reliance advanced further up by Rs 7 to Rs 367 on speculative support. TELCO shot up by Rs 13.25 to Rs 464.25, ACC Rs 23 at Rs 1235, IPCL Rs 7 at Rs 137.50, Tata Chemicals Rs 16.25 at Rs 179.75 and BPCL Rs 13.75 at Rs 449 on speculative support. SBI lost by Rs 2.25 to Rs 339.75, ITC by Rs 7.50 to Rs 497.25 and Tata Steel from Rs 193 to Rs 192.25.

On the National Stock Exchange (NSE), pivotal prices declined following the arrest of its member on charges of introducing fake and forged shares in the market. The NSE-50 index closed at 1153.70 points as against its previous close of 1158.35 points, suffering a loss of 4.65 points. The Midcap index closed at 1185.50 against 1191.65 points, losing 6.15 points.