Saturday, February 12 2005 12:58 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: Riding high on a massive Foreign Institutional Investors (FII) inflows in February, the sensex managed to extend its gains to fourth straight week in an otherwise range-bound and erratic movements on the bourses with the forthcoming budget still to trigger any price rally.

In the week to February 12, the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Benchmark 30-share Index fluctuated either-way in a range of 6658.33 and 6508.33 before ending the week at 6633.76 as against last weekend's close of 6618.23, a net gain of 15.53 points or 0.23 per cent.

FIIs once again have turned heavy buyers in the month after a drastic slowdown during January and reported net investments of Rs 630.30 crore in the first four trading sessions of the week.

FIIs have pumped in over Rs 3500 crore in equities in the first ten days of February and remained the principal driving force behind the market while the Union Budget to be presented at the month-end was still to ignite any stocks rally despite high expectations from it.

Investors have been anticipating a market-friendly budget consisting proposals of tax sops for corporates including abolition of short-term capital gains tax and reduction in dividend distribution tax.

The low inflation and a sharp rise in industrial growth might strengthen the market during next week.

The inflation fell to 5.25 per cent for the week ended January 29 and Industrial growth shot up to 8.4 per cent during April-December this fiscal.

Domestic financial institutions too were net buyers, albeit in small quantity, during the week.

Domestic players, however, seemed to be a bit cautious at the prevailing market levels, fearing a dramatic correction. They preferred to book profits at every price rise in the absence of fund allocations by foreign funds for the New Year.

The fund inflows in the month was largely from new FIIs registered in the past few months.

A heavy weighted counter HLL suffered a sharp setback on continued selling during the week on worries over strong competition to the company. HLL reported 32 per cent decline in net profit for the year ended December 2004 from last year.

Among other indices, the broad-based BSE-100 Index rose by 18.57 points to end the week at 3585.45 from last weekend's close of 3566.88.

The BSE-200 Index and the Dollex 200 were quoted up at 891.66 and 339.01 at the weekend compared to last weekend's close of 883.14 and 338.24 respectively.

The BSE-500 Index firmed up by 33.33 points to close the week at 2811.46 from preceding weekend's close of 2778.13 while the Dollex-30 ended the week down at 1243.74 from 1249.96 at the last weekend.

On the National Stock Exchange (NSE), the S&P CNX Nifty improved by 5.90 points to close the week at 2082.05 from last weekend's close of 2077.95 but the S&P CNX Defty fell back by 9.60 points to 1648.25 at the weekend from previous weekend's close of 1657.85. The CNX Nifty Junior moved up by 14.60 points to finish the week at 4382.90 from 4368.30 at the preceding weekend.

During the week, the volume of business was Rs 12,108 crore on the BSE and Rs 25,080 crore on the NSE respectively.