Mumbai: Driven by sustained flow of foreign investments on Indian bourses, the SENSEX rallied sharply
gaining 3.85 per cent to end the week at 15-week high on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) that also
witnessed the return of retail investors.
During the week under review, foreign institutional investors (FIIs), which have been making net
investments on bourses for past several days, made net purchases of Rs 477 crore in the first four
sessions. They were net buyers to the tune of Rs 505 crore during the preceding week.
Withstanding pressure from profit booking reportedly by the Unit Trust of India (UTI), majority of stocks,
mainly blue chips, scored impressive gains as optimism returned to the market largely because of
increasing FII activity coupled with fairly heavy support by Indian financial institutions.
Reports indicating the onset of monsoon, though delayed for about a week, may not be prolonged with
strong possibility that rains would lash the country in the next few days.
The purchases by FIIs were more pronounced in old economy counters, particularly in blue chips like
Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), HLL, Telco, Tisco, Zee Telefilms, SBI, Dr Reddy's Lab and refinery stocks.
IT counters too rallied smartly on the back of strong advices from Wall Street.
Except refinery stocks, public sector unit (PSU) and bank stocks retreated after a sharp upsurge in the
last several trading sessions. As a result, the BSE-PSU index that had risen to the all-time high of
2,259.10 during the session on June 5, later ended the week at 2,180.03, still a new closing high, as
against last weekend's close of 2,156.25.
Among the losers in PSU and banking sector were Dredging Corp, HMT Ltd, Chennai Petro, ITI Ltd,
RCF, BEML, Vijaya Bank, Andhra Bank, BoB, BoI, Syndicate Bank, IDBI Bank and Indian Overseas Bank.
During the week, the BSE benchmark 30-share index moved widely in a range between 3,313.54 and
3,170.38 before ending the week at 3,303.24 as against last weekend's close of 3,180.75, netting a rise
of 122.49 points.
PTI
