Sensex opens high at 20,009.35 pts, up by 33 pts

Mumbai, Nov 5: The BSE sensitive index today resumed high at 20,009.35 points with a modest gain of around 33 points from its last close of 19,976.23 points on fresh speculative demands from FIIs and Mutual Fund operators.

Brokers said, ''Market opened on a positive note crossing the 20,000 mark but soon slipped into the red tracking weak global markets. It later recovered from the lower level. Market breadth was strong. Reliance Industries drifted lower. Auto and banking majors declined in early trade. Asian markets edged lower caused by worries about the credit market after US financial giant Citigroup said that it may suffer upto USD 11 billion in write-downs for subprime losses.''

Later, the Sensex was down by 81.82 points or 0.41 per cent at 19,894.41. It hit a low of 19,799.64 in the intra-day trade. At day's low of 19,799.64, Sensex had lost 176.59 points from its last close. The broad based S&P CNX Nifty index of NSE was down by 3.30 points or 0.05 per cent to 5,929.30 points from its last close of 5,932.40 points. The Nifty index recorded a low of 5,895.00 points in intra-day trade. The BSE Mid Cap index rose by 0.66 per cent to 8,074.72 and BSE Small Cap index rose by 1.25 per cent to 9,864.67.

Both these indices outperformed the Sensex.

Auto majors declined. India's largest truckmaker by sales, Tata Motors eased by 2.7 per cent to Rs 738. Tata Group is learnt to be leading the race to buy Land Rover and Jaguar after the second-round bidding in the auction of Ford's British brands closed on Friday, November 2, 2007.

Mahindra&Mahindra was down by 1.4 per cent at Rs 746 followed by Hero Honda Motors by 1.1 per cent at Rs 667, Bajaj Auto edged lower by 1.71 per cent at Rs 2,382. India's largest private sector entity by market capitalisation and oil refiner, Reliance Industries (RIL) declined by 1.13 per cent at Rs 2,682. Banking majors declined in the opening trade. State Bank of India was down by 1.15 per cent at Rs 2,225.90, followed by ICICI Bank that was down by 2.7 per cent at Rs 1,294.70 and HDFC Bank edged lower by 1.41 per cent at Rs 1,733.90. India's largest oil exploration firm by sales, ONGC declined by 1.76 per cent at Rs 1,342. India's largest cigarette maker in terms of revenue, ITC declined by 2.2 per cent at Rs 171.50.

Maruti Suzuki India was up by 1.15 per cent at Rs 1,033. Bharti Airtel was up by 3.32 per cent at Rs 924.55, followed by NTPC by 2.28 per cent at Rs 240.10, Cipla by 1.15 per cent at Rs 175.60 and Reliance Communications by 0.93 per cent at Rs 793.

Key benchmark indices in Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan were down by 0.73 per cent to 2.3 per cent. The Hong Kong stock market was the major loser today after Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said that China needed new laws before going ahead with a programme allowing mainland Chinese to invest directly in Hong-Kong-Listed securities. Hang Seng was down by 3.1 per cent at 29,524 followed by Nikkei by 1.55 per cent at 16,261, Taiwan's Taiwan Weighted by 1.05 per cent at 9,176, Singapore's Straits Times by 0.83 per cent at 3,684.30 and South Korea's Seoul Composite by 0.97 per cent at 1,999 all edged lower, brokers said.

UNI