Bargain hunting boost

STOCKS REPORT

Bargain hunting in index heavyweights such as Reliance and Hindustan Lever and continued buying in selected mid-cap stocks helped the BSE Sensex end at a near-four-month high on Tuesday.

The benchmark index traded in a narrow range of 31 points before ending with gains of 0.35 per cent or 18.44 points to close at 5264.67. The Nifty ended 6.15 points up to close at 1650.15.

The Sensex has now risen 1.3 per cent over three straight days, but is still down nearly 10 per cent in 2004.

Index heavyweights, HLL was up 2.64 per cent to Rs 114.75, State Bank of India was up 1.46 per cent to Rs 466.55, Reliance Industries was up 1.65 per cent to Rs 484.75 and ITC was up 0.70 per cent to Rs 1,041.55.

The gains are on back of thin volumes which are a sign of concern, opined brokers. The total turnover at the BSE accounted for mere Rs 1,475 crore, compared with Rs 1,412.73 crore on Monday.

ZEE Telefilms fizzled out on profit booking at higher levels. The stocks was down 3.03 per cent to Rs 156.70 down from the day's high of Rs 164.60 after ESPN Star said that it will challenge the award of Indian cricket telecast rights to Zee in a court. More than 23.8 lakh shares were traded on BSE on Tuesday.

Pharma MNC stocks were up on bargain hunting. Fulford was up 10 per cent to Rs 424.25, Pfizer was up 7.28 per cent to Rs 491.90, Pharmacia Healthcare was up 5.43 per cent to Rs 97, Abbott India was up 5.43 per cent to Rs 553.90, Merck was up 4.13 per cent to Rs 446.10 and Wyeth was up 3.08 per cent to Rs 485.

Tata Tele-Services was up 3.79 per cent to Rs 19.15 on reports that KT Corp, South Korea's leading telecom service operator, is interested in buying a stake in the Indian mobile telecom company as part of its global expansion drive. TTSL topped volumes on BSE with over 62.45 lakh shares.

MTNL was down 3.80 per cent to Rs 120.30 as the stock turned ex-dividend on the bourses today. The company declared 45 per cent dividend for the financial year 2003-04.

Among the indices, the BSE Auto Index was the only loser as counters witnessed profit booking at higher levels after a recent upward rally. The index was down 7.23 points to close at 2294.28. Bajaj Auto was down 1.4 per cent to Rs 913.15 and Maruti Udyog was down 0.9 per cent to Rs 393.45.