Sensex rebounds on institutional buying; up 39 points
Mumbai—The Sensex rebounded strongly on Friday, on the back of buying from both the domestic and foreign institutions.
Institutional buyers concentrated mainly on select technology and old economy stocks that led to markets surge on Friday.
The benchmark index, the BSE 30-share Sensex closed at 3,495.84 — 38.6 points higher from the previous day’s close of 3,457.24. Both the National Stock Exchange and the Stock Exchange, Mumbai (BSE) opened on a positive note boosted by renewed interest in technology counters and bargain hunting in the old economy counters.
Aptech Ltd was the highlight of the day. It gained the maximum with a rise of 12 per cent at close following the approval of restructuring plan in the board meeting of the company held on Friday.

Infosys, Wipro and Satyam Computers among others were the favourites for the morning session. PSUs stocks — VSNL, ONGC and CMC — also attracted considerable interest.
Mid-session saw bearish sentiments in stocks like HLL and ITC while selling was also witnessed in pharma and FMCG counters. But firm old economy counters again pushed the Sensex. Telco, Tata Power, Tisco and Tata Tea were up on market talks that the promoter might hike its stake in these companies.
Bhel also rose on the news that company is finalising another VRS.
In the afternoon session, Reliance and Reliance Petro took the centre stage on huge institutional purchase.
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Futures trading lackluster
Mumbai--Futures trading, launched a year ago, has failed to generate investor interest in the market.
The country's two major bourses-- the National Stock Exchange and the Bombay Stock Exchange - have managed to generate aggregate volume of Rs 4,584 crore between June 9, 2000 and June 8, 2001 which is just 0.22 per cent of the total volume of Rs 2.16 trillion aggregated by the two exchanges in the spot market.

Say market analysts, "The product failed to gain popularity mainly because the market already had the age-old carry forward mechanism with which the market players were comfortable with."
Lack of institutional participation also had a role to play for the poor volume, dealers said.
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Sebi tags derivatives membership with turnover tax dues
Mumbai--Sebi has decided to go ahead with the recovery of the turnover tax from brokers, which is in the region of Rs 400 crore between the two premier exchanges — the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and the National Stock Exchange (NSE).
Mr Pratip Kar, executive director in charge of secondary markets at Sebi, said that he was not aware of this.

Top sources in Sebi confirmed that it was mandatory on the part of the brokers to clear their turnover tax liability as quickly as possible. Hence, it is quite likely that the regulator may be insisting on clearing of the dues as regards the turnover tax of the brokers before clearing their applications for the membership of the derivatives segment.
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Sebi not to allow investors to switch over
Mumbai--The Securities & Exchange Board of India (Sebi) says it will not allow shareholders of VST Industries, who have already tendered their shares to Russell Credit, to switch over to Damanis' offer of Rs 151 a share.
When contacted, John Band, chief executive officer, ASK Raymond James, said it was an unfortunate decision as it was against the interests of minority shareholders of VST and said Bright Star was yet to decide on the future course of action with its last resort being legal action.
Sebi has proceeded on the basis that by accepting Russell's offer, the complaining shareholders have entered into a contract and withdrawal from acceptance was tantamount to unilateral cancellation of a contract.
Russell's offer stands at Rs 125 a share, against Damanis Rs 151, and cannot be revised any further.
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RPL mops up Rs 100 cr
Mumbai—Reliance Petroleum has mobilised Rs 100 crore through private placement of two-year bonds at a coupon rate of 9.95 per cent, payable annually. Merchant bankers say that the pricing on the RPL bonds is the lowest among "AA+" rated papers.
The coupon on the bond is at a mark-up of around 120 basis points over the secondary market yield on government bond of similar maturities.
RPL is a regular borrower in the bond market to meet its capital expenditure and working capital requirements. When contacted, a Reliance spokesman confirmed the bond issue.
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FIs, banks don’t need debenture reserve provision
Mumbai—The government has given a firm indication to financial institutions and banks that certain exemptions that will be extended to them.
Top sources said that financial services companies would not come under the purview of some of the amendments introduced in the Companies Act in November 2000.
The Act had spelt out out that all companies floating debentures will have to create a debenture redemption reserve with `adequate amounts’ credited to it from profits every year until such debentures are redeemed.
While manufacturing firms can manage this, for financial services providers setting up a reserve to match the outstanding liability would not be possible without taking a big hit on the bottomline. Understandably, banks, non-banking finance companies and particularly term lending institutions saw this as a serious setback.
Now however, sources confirmed that at a meeting in Delhi this week, the Department of Company Affairs (DCA) has accepted that setting up such a reserve will not be mandatory for banks and institutions.
Needless to say this has come as a sigh of relief to banks and FIs. Back to News Review index page