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Budget evokes positive response at BSE, frenzied buying by FIIs sees Sensex shoot up by 165 points

M P Joshi in Bombay

A jubilant mood prevailed among brokers and investors as the Bombay Stock Exchange Sensitive Index skyrocketed by 165 points following frenzied buying by foreign institutional investors and domestic institutional investors in pivotals.

Encouraged by various sops to mutual funds and concessions to various sectors of industry in the Union Budget for 1999-2000, the FIIs, DIIs and market players made heavy purchases in info-tech, FMCG [fast-moving consumer goods], MNC [multinational corporations] and pharmaceutical shares.

Reflecting the bullish phase, the 30-scrip BSE Sensex opened higher at 3301.13 points, quickly crossed the psychological barrier of 3400 to touch a high of 3,400.19, fell below the 3300 mark to a low of 3215.69, and closed at 3399.63, a net gain of 165.77 over yesterday's close of 3233.86 points.

Jignesh Shah, assistant vice-president (research) at Triumph International Finance, said a big list of securities hit the upper price bands.

The broad-based BSE 100 index zoomed up 71.86 points to 1506.95 as against yesterday's close of 1435.09 points. The BSE-200 and Dollex indices also shot up by 15.33 and 6.01 points to 347.69 and 136.24 points, as against the previous closing figures of 332.36 and 130.23 points, respectively.

Share broker Malini Ajit Sanghvi said Larsen & Toubro, Siemens, and Hindustan Construction will benefit from the encouragement given to the infrastructure sector while Global Telesystems, MTNL, Sterlite, Finolex Cables and Birla Ericcson will benefit in the telecom sector.

Punjab Tractors and ITC Agro Tech will get the benefit of the higher outlays on agriculture while the Housing Development Finance Corporation and Life Insurance Corporation of India Housing Finance will benefit from the incentives announced to the housing sector.

Rhone Poulenc, Knoll Pharma, Glaxo, Dr Reddy's Laboratories, and Cipla will get the benefit of various Budget proposals relating to the pharmaceutical industry, she said.

The total turnover on the BSE On-Line Trading system rose sharply to Rs20,401.2 million compared to yesterday's Rs12,202.1 million.

Tobacco Giant ITC topped the list by registering a turnover of Rs2,637.4 million, followed by Pentafour Software (Rs2,594.9 million), Reliance Industries (Rs1,965.1 million), Satyam Computers (Rs1626.5 million) and Tata Tea (Rs1,423.2 million).

Other actively traded counters were Zee Telefilms (Rs1322.5 million), Hindustan Lever (Rs546.2 million), Glaxo (Rs502.2 million), State Bank of India (Rs485.5 million), L&T (Rs471.9 million), TELCO (Rs438.4 million), TISCO (Rs427.9 million), ACC (Rs369 million), NIIT (Rs316.4 million) and Infosys (Rs279.7 million).

UNI

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