Mumbai: Stocks recovered their early losses and even posted moderate gains at close, pushing the Sensex up by 51 points at the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) today (June 17, 2004) on emergence of buying support on the back of positive FIIs inflow.

The BSE Benchmark 30-share Index, which had fallen to the intra-day low at 4746.51 at early stages on selling pressure from retail investors, later staged a smart recovery and ended at 4839.88 as against yesterday's close of 4788.80, netting a gain of 51.08 points or 1.07 per cent.

Attributing the recovery in prices to buying support at the day's lower levels, brokers said operators covered their short positions, mainly in blue-chip counters in response to positive FII (Foreign Institutional Investors) activity.

FIIs, which have made net investments of Rs 236 crore on June 14 and 15, were believed to be buyers in key counters like Tata Motors, Tisco, RIL, Satyam Computers, Infosys Tech, ONGC and a few others.

Initially, retail investors reacted to negative activity by domestic mutual funds, which have reportedly been net sellers in both equity and debt markets during the first 15 days of the month in view of redemption pressure. Local Mutual Funds reported net sales of Rs 1224 crore during the period.

Heavyweights like Tata Motors, Tisco, RIL, Zee Telefilms SBI, ONGC, MTNL, Infosys Tech, Satyam Computers, ICICI Bank, HPCL, Maruti Udyog, BHEL and Bajaj Auto scored impressive gains on fairly heavy buying support.

However, Ranbaxy, Dr Reddy's Lab, Cipla, Hindalco, HDFC and Hero Honda showed marked falls.