Institutional interest lifts ONGC

DALAL STREET SPIKES

Index heavyweight ONGC witnessed smart gains in the past two days on renewed buying interest from institutional investors.

The stock has been in the limelight on reports that the company's subsidy sharing burden on LPG and kerosene would be lower-than-expected boosted the counter.

The stock, in intra-day trades, on Monday touched a high of Rs 806.10 before closing at Rs 800.10. An equity head with a foreign broking firm said, "The larger foreign institutional investors are looking at growth oriented, higher free float stocks to invest among Indian equities. The scrip had jumped 3.9 per cent on Friday to Rs 777.80 on a heavy volume of 11.55 lakh shares. The scrip has rebounded strongly from an earlier low of Rs 693.75 on September 9, 2004, to Monday's close of Rs 800.10.

ONGC has a weightage of 14.5 per cent in the Nifty and 5.1 per cent in the Sensex.