Friday, September 23 2005 17:01 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: The market today (Sept 23, 2005) stabilised after an initial roller-coaster ride and ended flat on renewed buying support in response to positive statements from Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).

Initially, the Bombay Stock Exchange Benchmark 30-share Index witnessed wild swings in over 200-point-range between 8327.35 and 8121.81 on panic selling alternated by heavy institutional support at lower levels.

The Sensex, however, turned stable above 8200-level after clarifications by Chidambaram and the Sebi around noon and ended the day 8222.59 as against yesterday's close of 8221.64, a variation of 0.95 point.

Foreign Institutional Investors and Indian Financial Institutions were believed to be heavy buyers in several blue chip counters at the lower levels.

Attributing greater volatility in the last two days to misleading media reports, brokers said the market found strong respite in Chidambaram's statement that price earning ratio was well within comfort zone and there was no scam in the stock market.

The market regulator also attempted to allay fears about a probe into rapid upsruge in stocks by government agencies saying most of the reports on the subject were baseless and that the monitoring by such agencies was nothing unusual.

Yesterday, the market had crashed by 266 points or 3.13 per cent on panic selling triggered by reports of raids on stocks brokers across the country by Income Tax authorities as well as a series of steps initiated by the financial market regulators to protect investors.

The volatility, however, is expected to remain for few more days till the expiry of September contract in the Futures and Options on Thursday.

The market fundamentals remained strong and an overnight sharp setback is considered as a necessary correction to the overheated market, brokers said.