Mumbai: Equities witnessed erratic movements today (Mar 3, 2004) in a relatively small range of 78 points, with the market showing stability above 5,800-level on a steady flow of buying from retailers and operators.

The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) benchmark 30-share index opened moderately up at 5,830.77 and later fluctuated irregularly in a range between 5,870.63 and 5,792.97 before ending at 5,842.20 as against Monday's (Mar 1, 2004) close of 5,823.17, a net gain of 19.03 points or 0.33 per cent.

After a two-session stocks rally that lifted the Sensex by over 265 points, brokers expected the market to remain steady ahead of the sale of Government stake in Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) through public offer slated to hit the market on March 5.

Retailers and operators seemed to have shifted focus to primary market and reportedly were taking keen interest in the offer in the light of the statement by Union Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie that overseas investors have shown strong interest in the ONGC issue, brokers said.

Bajaj Auto, Grasim, RIL, Tisco, Tata Motor, ITC, Hindalco and Zee Telefilms scored impressive gains on hectic buying by retailers. However, a sharp setback in heavyweighted counters like Infosys Tech, Satyam Computers, HLL, BHEL, Bharti Tele and ICICI Bank mitigated the Sensex rally.

With effect from March 4, the BSE and the National Stock Exchange (NSE) will reschedule their trading period till March 18 due to outage with prospects of disruption in VSAT services.

The trading would be extended till 16.15 hrs for all the market segments.