Mumbai: Equities overcame early resistance and later rallied smartly aiding the SENSEX end the week in positive terrain on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on fairly good investments by foreign institutional investors (FII) and fresh buying by punters.

After dipping below 3200-level under continued pressure in equities, the BSE barometer made a strong turnaround and managed to remain in the black as FIIs, which had been consistent sellers in the past few weeks, made net purchases of Rs 117 crore in three sessions between June 25 and 27.

Investors made heavy purchases in both old and new economy counters with their focus on select heavyweight counters, which have high weightage in the benchmark.

Besides Infosys Tech and Satyam Computers, which attracted good enquiries at the fag end largely on encouraging trend in the NASDAQ stocks, cement and steel stocks also remained in keen demand. Reports of increased offtake in cement have been the driving force behind the firmness in this sector while steel shares shined on a hike in steel prices.

Initially, investors were hesitant and worried over some negative factors.

The Unit Trust of India (UTI), which is facing a severe cash crunch and has, for the first time in history, skipped the dividend on US-64 scheme for 2001-02, induced investors to slowdown their activity.

Investors had resorted to off-loading during initial trading sessions following hospitalisation of Reliance group's patriarch Dhirubhai Ambani on June 24 evening, who has been on life support since then.

PTI