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Pharma, infotech equities sustain uptrend; rights issue talk spurs hectic activity at ACC counter; Sensex up 24 points, 2945.64

An uptrend continued at the Bombay Stock Exchange for the second consecutive day today as the pharma and software scrips gained further on good buying support from institutional investors today.

Infosys Tech, Satyam Computers, Pentafour Software, BFL Software, Telco, MTNL and Grasim were the major gainers while Hindalco and Zee TV turned weak on selling pressure, dealers said.

Russia's intentions to increase import of pharma products from India encouraged market participants.

Cement giant ACC witnessed hectic activity on the announcement made by the board of directors of cement giant ACC about rights issue of equity shares to the existing shareholders of the company, but failed to maintain the gain. The ACC scrip opened at 861.50, touched the day's high of 871.00, low of 835 and finally ended at 859 against the previous close of 862.50.

Reflecting the firm trend, the 30-scrip BSE Sensex opened at 2927.95 points, touched the day's high of 2945.64 points, fell to touch day's low of 2900.25 and ended at 2945.64 points, showing a net gain of 23.84 points as against the previous close of 2921.80 points.

The broad-based BSE-100 index advanced by 9.18 points to 1307.89 points from the previous close of 1298.71 points.

The foreign institutional investors have made heavy purchases in fundamentally strong scrips while the domestic institutional investors too bought considerable amount of shares at select counters, market sources said.

The BSE-200 and Dollex indices also firmed up further by 1.75 and 0.63 points to 302.98 and 118.44 points as against the previous close of 301.23 and 117.81 points respectively.

Among the issues, Cadbury's gained by Rs 7.75 to Rs 419, Castrol Rs 18.50 to Rs 661.50, Dr Reddy's Rs 8 to Rs 466, Glaxo Rs 24.25 to Rs 620.50, Grasim Rs 9.30 to Rs 163, Infosys Tech Rs 83 to Rs 2592.00, Mahindra and Mahindra Rs 2 to Rs 155.40, NIIT Rs 16.50 to Rs 1467.50, Satyam Computers Rs 5 to Rs 534, Smithkline Pharma Rs 5.35 to Rs 534.75, SBI Rs 3.40 to Rs 159.20, Telco Rs 1.90 to Rs 132.50, Tisco Rs 1.50 to Rs 98.

Among the losers, ACC lost by Rs 3.50 to Rs 859, Bajaj Auto Rs 6.75 to Rs 556, BHEL Rs 1.40 to Rs 243.90, Hindalco Rs 9.50 to Rs 501.50, ITC Rs 2.50 to Rs 706 and Zee TV Rs 28.50 to Rs 575.25.

The exchange witnessed net selling by the foreign institutional investors and domestic institutional investors of Rs 90 million today.

Total turnover on the BOLT system rose sharply to Rs 12.72 billion from yesterday's turnover of Rs 10.72 billion.

Satyam Computers stood first in the list of turnover by registering the highest turnover of Rs 1.94 billion, followed by Zee Telefilms (Rs 1.10 billion), ITC (Rs 1.09 billion), SBI (Rs 895.8 million) and Pentafour Software (Rs 835 million).

Other actively traded scrips were Telco (Rs 642.8 million), Glaxo (Rs 509.3 million), Reliance (Rs 481.5 million), ACC (Rs 382.6 million), Dr Reddy's (Rs 312 million), Tisco (Rs 302.6 million), Infosys Technologies (Rs 296.8 million), Tata Tea (Rs 229.1 million) and MTNL (Rs 221.9 million).

UNI

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