Sensex opens high at 9396 pts

Mumbai, Nov 17 (UNI) The Sensex today opened firm at 9,396.93 points on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) from its last close of 9,385.42 on fresh speculative demand from mutual funds and others.

The Nifty Index of National Stock Exchange (NSE) also opened high at 2,813.40 points, with a gain of three points, from its last close.

Opening with a marginal gain of 11.51 points, the BSE 30-share Sensex is now down by 243.17 points to 9,142.25. It recorded the day's high and low at 9,435.89 and 9,139.80 points respectively. The Nifty also fell by 61.65 points to 2,748.70. It recorded the day's low at 2,745.65 and high at 2,831.70.

Brokers said 'More measures announced by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to shield the Indian economy from the global economic slowdown gave a positive start to the domestic bourses. However, the market soon plunged in red, even as Asian markets rose after the G20 countries agreed on a host of fiscal and monetary steps to rescue the global economy. The RBI's latest measures to boost liquidity in the money market failed to boost banking stocks. Steel and cement stocks were mixed on government's effort to boost exports.

The central bank said it would consider proposals from local firms to buyback foreign currency convertible bonds early.

Reliance Industries (RIL) slipped by 1.27 pc to Rs 1,134.

Realty stocks fell too. Realty majors, Indiabulls Real Estate, Parsvnath Developers, Unitech and DLF fell by between 0.91 pc and 4.48 pc. ICICI Bank fell by 3.32 pc as its American Depository Receipt (ADR) lost 6.56 pc on last Friday. HDFC Bank fell 2.62 pc as ADR slumped 6.39 pc on Friday. India's largest commercial bank State Bank of India (SBI) lost 0.69 pc. Satyam Computer Services fell 2.24 pc as its ADR fell by 9.68 pc on Friday.

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