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Settlement opens on a positive note as pivotals gain; Nifty up eight points, 829.15

Pivotals gained moderately on good buying support by foreign institutional investors and bull operators on the opening day of the current settlement, at the National Stock Exchange today.

Reflecting the improved sentiment, the S&P CNX Nifty gained by 8.25 points to 829.15 points against 820.90 points of the previous day. The CNX Nifty Junior also moved up by 9.50 points to 1402.50 points and S&P CNX Defty looked up 6.90 points to 679.10 points.

The S&P CNX 500 index rose by 4.84 points to 568.84 points while the CNX Midcap 200 index improved by 2.92 points to 501.97 points from 499.05 points of the previous day.

The total turnover, involving 48.04 million shares in 148,080 trades, was Rs 9.51 billion and the debenture traded value was Rs 2.40 million.

About 614 securities advanced, 346 declined while 82 remained unchanged. And 59 securities hit their price bands today.

The net investment by the FIIs was Rs 92.3 million while domestic insitutions were net sellers worth Rs 15.8 million.

The top gainers in S&P CNX Nifty were: IPCL up by 8.03 per cent to Rs 59.90, Telco by 8.01 per cent to Rs 121.35, Grasim 4.89 per cent to Rs 143.85, Tata Power 4.81 per cent to Rs 87.10 and Glaxo 4.56 per cent to Rs 497.85.

The top losers were: Ranbaxy 4.30 per cent decline to Rs 453.10, TVS Suzuki 1.44 per cent to Rs 573.40, Asian Paints 1.36 per cent to Rs 290.05, Hindalco 1.28 per cent to Rs 501.05 and Cochin Refineries 1.17 per cent to Rs 131.

ITC topped the turnover list with Rs 1.56 billion, followed by Satyam Computers (Rs 1.47 billion), SBI New (Rs 814 million), Reliance (Rs 776.7 million), Pentafour Software (Rs 572.9 million), Telco (Rs 494.2 million), Castrol (Rs 400 million), Tisco (Rs 300.3 million), Zee Telefilms (Rs 257.2 million), L&T (Rs 157.1 million), HCL-HP (Rs 155.5 million), Glaxo (Rs 151.8 million), and Software Solutions International (Rs 127 million).

The other actively traded counters were: Tata Tea (Rs 125.8 million), ACC (Rs 124.4 million), Digital Equipment (Rs 120.6 million), Infosys Technologies (Rs 113.9 million), Raymond (Rs 110.4 million), Square D Software (Rs 88.6 million), Hindustan Lever (Rs 83.1 million), Ranbaxy (Rs 82 million), ICICI (Rs 80.4 million), MTNL (Rs 73.8 million), Bajaj Auto (Rs 68.1 million) and Mastek (Rs 68 million).

The wholesale debt market of NSE witnessed trades worth Rs 3.82 billion. The 11.40 per cent government loan maturing in 2000 was actively traded for Rs 600 million at a weighted yield of 11.39 per cent. The zero coupon government bond maturing in 2000 (Series I) was traded for Rs 500 million at a weighted yield of 11.07 per cent. Commercial paper of Tisco maturing on January 14, 1999 was traded for Rs 100 million at a yield of 10.78 per cent. The turnover in debentures was Rs 44.86 million.

UNI

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