MUMBAI, FEBRUARY 4: Alternate bouts of buying and selling promises to keep the market volatile for some more time, at least until the Union Budget, say brokers. With no fund-based buying in the pivotals and expectations of high badla rates at the end of the week, selling pressure in Sensex-based counters like HLL, ITC, Bhel, and MTNL brought down the index by 26.60 points.``Nobody wants to carry forward positions in pivotals,'' said dealers, explaining the selling pressure witnessed in key scrips in the BSE today. Brokers are expecting the badla rates on the BSE to be high at over 28 per cent, following the steep rates on the CSE. Yesterday, the official badla rates on the Calcutta exchange was between 32 to 34 per cent.
HLL lost more than three per cent. ITC was down by two and a half per cent. SBI too showed a lower closing. MTNL, Bhel, Bajaj Auto fell more than four per cent each. HCPL too fallen by four per cent. Among the other index-based counters, ICICI also showed a handsome gain of eight per cent.
The focus was on IT stocks as usual, which, brokers said were being used as a hedge. In fact, downright erosion in the index was prevented by the optimism in this sector. Infosys showed an impressive rally, gaining over five per cent. NIIT too showed hectic buying and touched the upper circuit.
Satyam Computers opened with a gap and hit the upper circuit during the latter half of the day. Global Telesystem and Pentafour Software too hit the upper circuit.
Other software stocks which saw hectic buying were Wipro, Rolta, HCL and Silverline. Wipro, vindicating investors' confidence in the buoyancy of the scrip, opened at Rs 5000, climbed to a high of Rs 5378 before settling down to close at Rs 5268 against Thursday's close of Rs 4980.
Among the other counters, Sterlite, Videocon International, Tata Tea, Reliance Capital, Wockhardt and BPL showed impressive gains. In the non-specified list, stocks like Pentafour Communications, Clio Finance, Ojas Techno, PCS, Madras Refineries, Nath Seeds, Orient Info, Zenith Computers, ATN, Twinstar, Centurion Bank, Computech and Lee&Nee Software remained the star performers.
The Sensex opened firm at 5394 points and touched a high of 5402.70 points. However, during the latter half of the day, as a result of selling in heavyweights, it dipped closing out at at 5313.59 points.
Although the Sensex lost 27 points, the number of advances showed an improvement. It stood at 1182, while the number of declines was at 1010. Around 250 stocks remained unchanged. The volume for the day was quite high at Rs 4571 crore on the BSE.
Copyright © 2000 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.