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Fag-end UTI, LIC buying props up prices; Sensex 3133.42

Fag end purchasing by the foreign institutional investors and hectic buying support by the domestic institutions lifted the Sensex up by 13.88 points on the Bombay Stocks Exchange today.

The market opened on selling pressure and absence of investors, coupled with fall in blue-chip prices on New York market had an impact on Indian bourses. But, during the later part of the day, scrips comprising Unit Trust of India, Life Insurance Corporation of India, General Insurance Corporation of India invested good amount in the capital market mainly in non-specified counters, that reflected in equity prices, the market sources said.

Mirroring the uptrend, the BSE Sensitive Index opened lower at 3069.92 points, touched day's high of 3138.39 points, low of 3062.05 points before closing at 3133.42 points showing a net gain of 13.88 points as against the previous close of 3119.54 points.

The broadbased BSE National Index also improved by 6.67 points to 1386.72 points over the last trading day's close of 1379.05 points.

The BSE-200 and Dollex indices finished higher by 1.97 and one points to 319.23 and 125.14 points as compared to yesterday's close of 317.26 and 124 points.

Around 3 pm, FIIs entered the market, purchased good amount of Telco and Tisco shares, brokers said.

The domestic institutions continued their support, bought sizeable amount of non-specified as well as specified shares, leading brokers said and added the hints dropped by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee yesterday while participating in the debate on India's foreign policy in the Lok Sabha that India could sing the comprehensive test ban treaty halted the downfall and improved the sentiment of FIIs.

The total turnover on the screen-based trading system was Rs 7.72 billion involving 30.1 million shares in 99,560 trades. The maximum active users were 2102.

ITC recorded highest turnover of Rs 2.01 billion followed by Satyam Computers Rs 1 billion, SBI Rs 488.4 million, Zee Telefilms Rs 455.4 million, Pentafour Software Rs 373.2 million, Tata Tea Rs 325.3 million, RIL Rs 323.3 million, Telco Rs 214.7 million, MTNL Rs 189.3 million, Dr Reddy's Rs 133.2 million, Tisco Rs 128.5 million, BHEL Rs 116.1 million, BPL Rs 101.8 million, Castrol India Rs 101.6 million, Infosys Tech Rs 100.8 million in specified counters.

Good transactions were observed at Bata India (Rs 9.4 million), BFL Software (Rs 9.3 million), Silverline Industries (Rs 8 million), Bausch and Lomb (Rs 6.3 million), HCL (Rs 5.4 million), DCW (Rs 5.3 million) and Cyber System (Rs 5.2 million) at 'B1' counters.

UNI