Sensex closes with modest gain of 31.78 pts

Mumbai, Aug 26: The Sensex today rose by a modest 31.78 points to end at 14,482.22 on the Bombay Stock Exchange on renewed bull support from Foreign Institutional Investors and domestic institutional investors (DIIs). Trading bounced back in the last one hour amid choppiness and ended marginally in green. Buying interest was seen in banking, capital goods, power, cement, select technology and auto stocks.

Frontline indices shrugged off weak global cues in late trade, a leading broker said. The Sensex closed at 14,482.22, up 31.87 points or 0.22 per cent after touching an intraday high of 14,495.27 and low of 14,286.38. The Nifty index of National Stock Exchange (NSE) ended with a modest gain of 2.15 points or 0.05 pc at 4337.50. It hit a high and low of 4345.05 and 4283.30 points respectively during the session.

Total turnover in markets improved a bit in today's trade, which stood at Rs 62,216.38 crore. This includes Rs 8,658.30 crore from NSE Cash segment, Rs 49,779.36 crore from NSE F &O and balance Rs 3,778.72 crore from BSE Cash segment.

Market breadth also recovered a bit. About 1314 shares advanced while 1514 shares declined. Nearly 339 shares remained unchanged.

Brokers said volatility may remain high in the near term, ahead of the expiry of derivative contracts for the August 2008. As per reports, marketwide rollover of positions from August 2008 series to September 2008 series stood at 31 per cent, while that of Nifty was at 28 pc as of last Monday.

Both the indices of BSE and NSE rose by 80.73 points and 10.05 points respectively in the last two days.

The BSE indices fluctuated as BSE BANKEX index rose sharply by 116.82 points and ended firm at 6862.54 points, followed by AUTO index by 50.64 to 3916.49 points, CG index by 35.92 to 11,893.41 points, IT index by 33.05 to 3895.48 points, HC index by 20.40 to 4312.25 points, FMCG index by 15.72 to 2194.18 points and POWER index by 13.59 to 2586.75 points.

But BSE key indecies drifted lower like OILS &GAS index declined steeply by 115.85 points to close low at 9768.34 points, METAL index eased by 61.29 to 12,182.08 points, REALTY index dropped by 30.83 to 5012.69 points and SML CAP also came down by 9.63 to 6912.62 points.

However, top heavyweight stocks looked up on sustained heavy bull support by local operators. HDFC Bank shot up by Rs 47.35 to finish high at Rs 1255.45, followed by BHEL by Rs 33.15 to Rs 1721.70, REL INFRA by Rs 17.10 to Rs 1002.30, TCS by Rs 14.45 to Rs 832.35, L&T by Rs 14.35 to Rs 2619.05, SBI by Rs 14.00 to Rs 1371.45,Satyam Comp by Rs 12.80 to Rs 406.10, ICICI Bank by Rs 11.05 to Rs 666.90 and M&M by Rs 10.75 to Rs 574.25.

A few top heavyweight shares, however, drifted lower on profit booking at higher level by some mutual fund operators. Reliance declined steeply by Rs 51.30 to close negative at Rs 2179.65, HDFC plummeted by Rs 19.60 to Rs 2343.80, Tata Steel eased by Rs 8.05 to Rs 577.55, Infosys Tech dropped by Rs 5.45 to Rs 1697.60, Bharti Tele came down by Rs 3.95 to Rs 809.80 and Sterlite slipped by Rs 3.50 to Rs 614.95.

UNI