Wednesday, March 30 2005 16:59 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: After the overnight sharp plunge of 143 points, the Sensex today (Mar 30, 2005) witnessed a swing of about 79 points before ending with a moderate gain of 14 points in highly volatile trade largely attributed to the approaching end of current derivatives contract.

Domestic mutual funds reportedly were making selective purchases in a bid to jack up the net asset value of units at the fiscal yearend while operators engaged in squaring up positions ahead of expiry of March contract in the Futures and Options segment on Thursday.

The BSE Benchmark 30-share Index saw wide fluctuations in a range of 6400.07 and 6321.31 after a promising start at 6371.40, and ended the day at 6381.40 as against yesterday's close of 6367.86, a net 13.54 points or 0.21 per cent.

The market, however, remained cautious in the light of a slowdown in FII activity coupled with fears that high crude oil prices could hamper the economic growth.

Finance Minister P Chidambaram warned yesterday that oil prices near record highs could shave 0.5 percentage point off growth in Asia's fourth-largest economy.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite Index also had ended down by 79.95 points and 18.64 points yesterday respectively.

Key counters like SBI, ONGC, Bajaj Auto, Dr Reddy's, HDFC Hero Honda, ITC, Maruti Udyog and Tata Power recorded impressive gains on fairly heavy buying support.

However, Wipro, BHEL, Tata Steel, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Ranbaxy, GACL and Bharti Tele-Venture showed marked losses.