Sensex rallies after early crash

MUMBAI, APRIL 25. Equities, led by IT stocks, staged a dramatic recovery after midsession aiding the Sensex to close modestly higher on the Bombay Stock Exchange today on heavy purchases by foreign funds and financial institutions.

Key technology stocks such as Infosys Technologies, NIIT, Satyam Computers and Zee Telefilms along with many others remained locked in the lower end of the circuit filter leaving no room for any transactions during the first half of the session as news of further fall by about 168 points in the Nasdaq index on Monday circulated in the market.

Speculators, who wanted to square up positions on the last day of the current settlement on the National Stock Exchange, turned panicky and pressed sales in other counters too. As a result, the benchmark 30-share index that opened sharply down at 4336.64 crashed further to the day's low of 4284.17.

Taking advantage of the low levels, foreign institutional investors and financial institutions entered in a big way and reportedly made heavy purchases in Satyam Computers, Infosys, Reliance, NIIT, Zee Telefilms and a few others.

Reflecting the strong turnaround in heavyweighted shares, the Sensex bounced back to close at 4533.99 against yesterday's close of 4511.05, netting a moderate gain of 22.94 points. The BSE-100 index, however, fell by 24.56 points to 2400.99 from 2425.55.

Acting swiftly, the Securities and Exchange Board of India has decided to impose additional margin of 5 per cent on scripwise outstanding sale position at the end of the day with effect from April 26. Meanwhile, the risk management group of SEBI, set up to rationalise and simplify margin system, scheduled to meet here tomorrow, is expected to further discuss the issue.

Ten shares of 106 losers in the specified group were locked in the lower end of circuit filter. However, Sterlite, Zee Telefilms and Atlas Copco hit the upper price band.

The BSE-200 index and the Dollex were quoted down at 512.53 and 195.49 against 519.06 and 197.98 respectively. The BSE-500 index softened by 23.43 points to 1540.60 from 1564.03.

The volume of business was relatively low at Rs. 2,291.11 crores against Rs. 2,566.15 crores. Reliance clocked the highest turnover of Rs. 390.83 crores followed by Zee Telefilms (Rs. 331.43 crores), Satyam Computer (Rs. 326.50 crores), Infosys (Rs. 202.83 crores) and Silverline (Rs. 59.59 crores).

- PTI

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