Mumbai, Nov 26: The markets rallied again on Friday on the back of softwarestocks, but finally closed lower as profit-booking took its toll on the lastday of the current settlement on the BSE. The BSE Sensex closed 35.69 pointsdown from its previous level to 4704.99 on the last day of trading in thecurrent account. The S&P CNX Nifty on the NSE closed 9.05 points lower at1408.65.According to brokers, Friday's trading was extremely selective with only thesoftware stocks, led by Satyam Computers, showing smart gains. But unwindingof long positions by the operators in other pivotal counters pulled theSensex down to near the day's low of 4696.66 and it closed at 4704.99against Thursday's 4740.68.
The BSE closed its Friday session early at 2.30 pm to accommodate the carryforward session in the evening and a mock-trading on Saturday to test Y2Kreadiness of its systems.
The Nifty on the other hand opened at 1409.35, hovered between 1418.15 and1395.50 and closed at 1399.60 against its previous close of 1408.65.According to brokers, technically, the Sensex has to close above the4750-mark "before we can see any major rally next week." ``In case theSensex closes above 4750, we can see another 200 to 250 points rally in themarket,'' said Neel B Dalal, a BSE member.
Among the major gainers of the day, Mastek gained Rs 474 and closed at Rs6,464. Zee Tele, Visualsoft, HDFC Bank and TimesBank were also among themajor gainers. Among the losers, market heavyweight HLL closed its Fridaytrading on the BSE at Rs 2,312, down Rs 26 from its previous close. Othermajor losers were Dabur Rs 31 to Rs 895, Punjab Tractors Rs 23 to Rs1,023.05, ITC Rs 17 to Rs 729 and NIIT Rs 89 to Rs 2,391.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.