Thursday, January 20 2005 17:11 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: Buoyed by the Supreme Court's ruling against imposition of luxury tax on cigarettes, the market today (Jan 20, 2005) bounced back from the day's low and ended 10 points up even as some major corporates announced better-than-expected quarterly results during the session.

Backed by hefty gains in select heavy weighted stocks, the BSE Benchmark 30-share Index, which had tumbled to the day's low of 6091.08, later staged a sharp recovery and ended the day at 6183.24 as against yesterday's close of 6173.32, a net gain of 9.92 points or 0.16 per cent.

After suffering a sharp setback during morning trading, the market led by ITC, rebounded on the apex court ruling that the State Governments have no legislative competence to impose luxury tax on goods, including cigarettes and gutkas.

The Sensex had fallen by over 79 points, largely reacted negatively to FIIs net sales of Rs 164.50 crore on January 18 and an overnight sharp fall in the Nasdaq Composite Index.

ITC, which has a weightage of 11.30 per cent in Sensex, was the star performer on the court ruling this morning.

ACC, however, suffered a sharp setback as the open offer price of Rs 370 per share failed short of market expectations. Zurich-based Holcim Ltd and Ambuja Cement India have entered into a strategic alliance to acquire a majority stake in ACC.

GACL too dropped sharply following disappointing quarterly results announced by the company.

ITC, Tata Motor, Tata Steel, Satyam Computer, ONGC, L&T, Infosys Tech, Dr Reddy's, Cipla and Bajaj Auto recorded sharp to marked gains on hectic short covering by operators as well as purchases by institutional investors.