Sensex witnesses range bound trade

Mumbai, May 29: Sensitive index of Bombay Stock Exchange witnessed a range-bound trading session today, after taking a considerable jump on early buying in the opening trade. Sensex opened the session on firm note and moved up 140.66 points to touch a high of 16,666.03 following the positive trend in global market. However, it came down in the mid-morning session and was trading almost flat near the level of 16,500.

On similar note, the broader-based Nifty index of National Stock Exchange was marginally up by about 10 points at 4,928 in the mid-morning trade. Reliance Industries was up with a marginal gain at Rs 2,530, ICICI Bank fell 0.79 per cent at Rs 826.70 and Larsen&Toubro fell 0.75 per cent to Rs 2,729.50. The Company would announce its annual results today. The stock has fallen 9.92 per cent to Rs 2,709.10 in one month.

Housing Development Finance Corporation was up 2.72 per cent at Rs 2,583, Jaiprakash Associates was up 1.57 per cent at Rs 232.95, Wipro was up 1.23 per cent at Rs 512.40, Reliance Communication was up 1.39 per cent at Rs 559.25 and Tata Steel was up 1.09 per cent at Rs 912.50, were the top index gainers.

However, Tata Motors was down by 3.92 per cent at Rs 609.85, ITC down by 1.87 per cent at Rs 217.40, Infosys Technologies was down by 1.66 per cent at Rs 1,880.90, Ambuja Cements lost 1.59 per cent at Rs 102.45, Maruti Suzuki lost 1.25 per cent at Rs 768.10, were the top losers.

As per provisional data, foreign funds sold shares worth a net Rs 883.23 crore yesterday. Domestic funds bought shares worth a net Rs 527.98 crore on that day.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) were net buyers of Rs 1,503.25 crore in the futures and options segment yesterday. They were net buyers of index futures to the tune of Rs 522.92 crore and bought index options worth Rs 643.08 crore. They were net buyers of stock futures to the tune of Rs 236.44 crore and bought stock options worth Rs 100.81 crore.

UNI