MUMBAI, January 29: After a weak spell, pivotals on the Bombay Stock Exchange rallied on emergence of short covering. Sensex recovered 15 points. The closing rates showed small widespread gains. The volume of business remained below normal.The BSE sensitive index started at 3204.10, reached the day's high of 3230.65 but dropped thereafter and touched the new 52-week low of 3164.66 before closing at 3224.36 with a net gain of 14.81 over yesterday's close of 3209.55. The BSE-100 decreased further by 0.27 point to 1401.38 from the previous level of 1401.65.
Brokers said that the small recovery was mainly due short covering in view of today being the last session for the current settlement and encouraged by fresh buying by foreign institutional investors (FIIs) and favourable tfrom markets in East Asia. The early setback that pushed the Sensex to the intra-day low of 3164.66 was attributed to the Castrol board meeting sans bonus issue on the agenda. The meeting has been fixed for February 6 to considerdividend. Castrol dropped by Rs 29.75 to Rs 645.
ITC led the market with the highest turnover of Rs 178.03 crore of the total volume of business of Rs 788.31 crore followed by Castrol Rs 134.47 crore, SBI Rs 93.92 crore, Tata Tea Rs 73.32 crore and Reliance Rs 44.42 crore. ITC recovered by Rs 5.75 to Rs 555.75 on short covering. SBI, Tata Steel and Tata Tea also remained better. Reliance was fractionally up at 148.85 from previous close of 148. ACC lost Rs 18.50 at Rs 1278.50 and Bajaj Auto Rs 16 at Rs 489.25. Arvind Mills, BHEL, Indian Hotels, Telco, PBCL, Bombay Dyeing, Hindustan Lever and Ponds remained weak.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
