Late surge in buying

STOCKS REPORT

The stock markets rose for the third straight day on Friday, with the 30-scrip BSE Sensex hitting a 44-month high before ending at 5315.81 points, up 15.85 points.

The Sensex opened at 5321.49, went to an intra-day high of 5,343.91 and dipped to an intra-day low of 5283.75. The NSE's Nifty index also closed up 3.50 points at 1698.90.

Dealers said there was a lot of volatility during the day with buying and selling coming in spurts. The actual gains in the Sensex, however, came at the fag end of the trading session with some decent buying in index heavy weights. In the last three weeks, the index has gained around 10 per cent.

Dealers said the expected sell-off by foreign institutional investors was not happening. On Wednesday, FIIs bought around $135 million.

During this month so far, they have pumped in around $538 million. Their net investments into equities so far this year stands at a record $5.8 billion.

Dealers said stocks of fast moving consumer goods companies are again making an appearance on the radar screens of funds.

Scrips which gained during the day's trading included Tata Steel and HDFC. Banks were also being bought, while cement scrips recorded a rise.

Tata Steel ended at Rs 378.65, a gain of 3.6 per cent, while Jindal Steel closed at Rs 262.85, up 3.1 per cent.

Gujarat Ambuja Cements jumped 4.2 percent to Rs 304.10 rupees on rumours that a large US-based fund would be buying 10 million shares of the scrip in the open market.

IT stocks, meanwhile, tracking the overnight gains on the Nasdaq, made modest gains. Infosys Technologies closed at Rs 5030.75, recording a gain of 1.2 per cent.

Satyam Computer ended at Rs 343.20 (a rise of 2.2 per cent). On the overseas markets the ADRs of Infosys made a gain of 2.8 per cent while Satyam went up 8.9 per cent on Thursday.