Sensex rises 15 points backed by FII
buying
Mumbai--Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) engaged in heavy buying and took the
bourses to positive territory for the second day in succession on Wednesday.
The benchmark indices, however, remained in a narrow band posting marginal gains.
BSE Sensex gained 15 points while S&P CNX
Nifty was up 4.50 points.
On the back of the firming up of the US markets led by the US Fed Reserves
announcement to cut the interest rate for the fifth time, the domestic market also opened
firm.
The Sensex opened at 3585.79 against to the
previous close of 3576.96, its intra-day low, and touched the days high of 3630.26,
where it met with some resistance before closing at 3592.06, netting a gain of 15.10
points. Nifty also gained 4.50 points to close at 1151.15 against to the previous close of
1145.30.
Stock market analysts discounted fears of a stock crash post Sebis decision to ban
badla from July 2, as FIIs and domestic financial institutions seem to have welcomed
Sebis decision.
As sentiments perked up the turnover at BSE rose to Rs 1,360.17 crore against Rs 1,315.16
crore registered on Tuesday.
Pharma stocks were on the rise on the back of
the optimism that the Centre planned to prune the list of drugs under price control order.
Glaxo India, Ranbaxy Laboratories, Cipla, E
Merck and Burrough Wellcome all witnessed modest to sharp rise in the prices with
some of them hitting the upper circuit of 8 per cent or more. However, some of the MNCs
pharma stocks like Novartis and Smithkline Pharma were down 4.45 per cent and 2.64 per
cent respectively at Rs 290.90 and Rs 398, on the news that these companies may not
benefit from the new move.
Satyam Computer, Zee Telefilms and Infosys Technologies were the most active counters
clocking turnovers of more than Rs 100 crore each.
Satyam Computer rose to Rs 245 after its ADS listed at a premium of 15 per cent at NYSE
but met with resistance and closed at Rs 224.75 against its previous close of Rs 228.20.
Zee Telefilms with a trading volume of 86.13 lakh shares valued at Rs 103.57 crore. The
stock jumped up from Rs 114.85 to a high of Rs 123.90 and closed at Rs 122.20.
Infosys Technologies, closed down from Tuesdays close of Rs 3,907.95 to Rs 3,797.45.
Philips India, United Phosphorous and Bausch & Lomb were also in demand and were
locked in then upper circuit of 16 per cent.
Carrier Aircon gained about 10 per cent in value to close at Rs 94.05. The closing price
is about to touch the offer price of Rs 100 offered by the US parent.
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UTI invests hugely
in junk securities
Mumbai-- Though UTIs investments in K-10 securities have come in
for considerable flak, few are aware that it has made investments, most of them
questionable, in a number of other securities that may not be worth the paper they are
printed on.
Between December '98 and February '99 UTI
bought debentures worth Rs 60 crore of Welspun Industries, in addition to Rs 15 crore of
debentures in Welspun Syntex.
Welspun India, the flagship company of the group is listed as a wilful defaulter by the
Reserve Bank of India.
This is not all. UTI invested Rs 25 crore in
debentures, issued by Ganesh Benzoplast in November '99, even though that the company had
a sub-investment grade rating from Crisil.
Other examples include subscribing to preference shares of Rs 10 crore of Emtex Industries
in February '01, even though United Western Bank had filed a winding up petition against
the company for failing to pay dues.
Other questionable investments include Rs 15 crore of investment in Shonk Technologies and
investments in Cyberspace Infosys (whose promoter is now absconding) at Rs 800 per share.
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