The market is of the view that the finance minister P Chidambaram may announce scaling down of the rate of exemptions for some industries. While fears over the continuing US air raids on Iraq remain, there was less of panic selling as brokers felt there would not be the kind of Gulf war as witnessed earlier.
The markets also improved on reports of the global oil prices stabilising marginally compared to the previous day. Selling pressure from FIIs was lower and some were buying in select counters. Buying support from the domestic financial institutions including UTI and LIC was also witnessed.
Trading volumes on both, NSE and BSE were low, however, the market pulled up towards the last half of trading. Activity was lacklustre on the NSE, with some key pivotals closing lower.
The Sensex, which opened steady at 3483.07, touched a high of 3518.41 before closing at 3516.90, up 32.22 over the previous close of 3484.68. The BSE 100 also improved marginally, closing at 1578.33 against a previous close of 1576.20.
The trading sentiment has improved even as the selling pressure has reduced marginally. The review of MAT has obviously improved sentiments, a leading BSE broker said. There was a certain amount of short covering towards the latter half of the trading session, with the BSE being closed today on account of Janmashtmi.
The NSE 50 index opened at 1022, touched a low of 1012 before reaching a high of 1028 and closed at 1026, gaining three points over the previous close of 1023. The net traded value on the NSE was Rs 541.37 crore, net traded quantity was 313.17 lakh shares and the number of trades were 73,366. On the BSE, the total turnover stood at Rs 319.16 crore, including Rs 259.81 crore through the specified group.
Hectic activity was observed in key stocks like SBI, Reliance Industries, Tisco, ITC, IPCL and BSES on both bourses. Trading in the B1 group stocks, however, continued to remain low.
The SBI stock on the BSE opened at Rs 276 before closing at Rs 280, while on NSE the stock closed at Rs 277.05 against a previous close of Rs 276.70. The Reliance stock also gained, closing at Rs 207.60 against a previous close of Rs 207.35 on the NSE and at Rs 208.50 against Rs 207.25 on the BSE.
The traded turnover for SBI was Rs 157.45 crore on the NSE, while on BSE the stock recorded a turnover of Rs 89.36 crore. Reliance was also actively traded on the major bourses, including Rs 100.26 crore on the NSE and Rs 35.07 crore on the BSE. The Tisco stock recorded the second highest level of trading on the BSE, with a turnover of Rs 49.45 crore. On NSE the stock recorded a turnover of Rs 73.33 crore.
