Mumbai, Nov 6: The markets made a smart recovery on Friday as foreign institutional investors (FIIs) made purchases on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) for the second consecutive day. BSE inched up further to close the day with a gain of 41.86 points with good buying support from speculators, foreign funds and domestic institutions on the last day of the current settlement on BSE.The petrochemical giant Reliance hogged the limelight and attracted heavy speculative buying with volume at 15.74 crore shares and the scrip price gaining Rs 8.30 to close at 119.60 compared to its previous close of Rs 111.30. The day was marked by the software sector taking a beating and the pharma stocks making major gains.
The 30-scrip BSE Sensitive Index opened at 2,849.58, touched the day's high of 2,885.75, the day's low of 2,849.58, before closing at 2,884.37, registering a net gain of 41.86 points over its previous close of 2,842.51. FIIs were marginal buyers on the NSE with net purchases of Rs 34 lakh while the domesticinstitutions net sellers at Rs 1.87 crore.
On the BSE, FIIs made net purchases of Rs 16 crore on Friday as compared to net purchases of Rs 26 crore on the previous day. Domestic institutions also made net purchases at Rs 24 crore on Friday as compared to Rs 6 crore the previous day.
FIIs were seen making purchases at select counters like Glaxo, HLL, Reliance, Tisco and Telco. Morgan Stanley is reported to have bought 9-10 lakh shares of ICICI Ltd, Dr Reddy's Lab and ITC. Morgan Grenfell is reported to have bought Glaxo while Credit Suisse First Boston is reported to have bought IPCL with the Stichit Fund buying Satyam Computers.
Domestic funds picked up small lots of shares of ACC and Reliance. Life Insurance Corporation is reported to have bought huge chunks of Telco with UTI selling Glaxo, Hoechst Marion Russel, Novartis and ITC.
Software stocks took a beating with selling by FIIs which led to a panic selling by operators. Infosys Technologies closed at 2,421.25 compared to its previous close of2449.00, NIIT closed at 1,266.50 compred to previous close of 1,270.25 and Satyam Computers closed at 575.75 against the previous close of 584.75.
``The markets will remain range bound as nothing much is happening these days for the markets to see a rally,'' said Dilip Bhat, a BSE broker. Being the last day of settlement, most operators were busy in squaring up their positions and the market is likely open on a higher note in the coming week, opined some dealers.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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