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Weekly stock review: BSE crosses 4000 mark

Sinha recently said that the fundamentals of the Indian economy are strong and the new government would not allow further depreciation of the rupee beyond what the market requires by holding it firmly.

Complimenting the apex bank for stabilising the forex market, which was volatile for quite some time, he said it has ruled out the possibility of of East Asian type attack on the currency.

Mirroring the bullish phase, the 30-share BSE Sensitive index crossed the psychological barrier of 4000-mark, registering a gain of 187.45 points to 4096.05 points as against the previous week's close of 3908.60 points.

The RBI's decision to cut the interest rate by fifty basis points to 10 per cent with effect from April 2 also attributed to the bullish phase, dealers said.

In the week under review, the BSE witnessed a downtrend on the first day of the current settlement due to the absence of support from foreign funds and a fresh wave of selling by institutions. This put pressure on local punters who turned sellers and booked profits.

Similarly,on the second day, the last day of financial year 1996-97, the market witnessed lacklustre activity with equities declining further following lack of buying support from foreign and domestic institutional investors.

However, on Wednesday, the first day of the current financial year saw brisk activity on the BSE and NSE.. On the former, domestic funds that had been sidelined on Tuesday due to it being their reporting day for the net asset values, were back on a buying spree purchasing shares of the chips such as ACC, Bajaj Auto, BHEL, BSES, Grasim, and others.

Taking stock of the situation, a leading broker commented that the bulls took a strong grip of the market from the very first day of the new fiscal year. With the government firmly set in place, leading funds and institution set to prop up the price of bluechips and other fundamentally strong side shares.

On Thursday, the market witnessed a bullish phase as the BSE breached the 4000-mark during the day following sustained purchases by FIIs and domestic funds while speculators actively made fresh bid in both specified and non-specified shares. However, frenzied buying calmed down towards the fag end of the session as higher levels at major counters could not be sustained due to profit taking.

On Friday, the last day of the current settlement, the Sensex finally crossed the 4000 mark to end the week at 4096.05 points.

The broadbased BSE-100 index registered a handsome gain of 68.67 points to 1770.40 points as against the previous week's close of 1702.73 points. The BSE-200 and Dollex indices also ended higher by 13.97 and 6.84 points to 392.00 and 165.18 points as compared to previous close of 378.03 and 158.34 points.

The total turnover on the NSE increased by 1411.67 crore to Rs 66.4 billion.

During the same week, the NSE-50 index gained by 33.10 points to 1173.45 points as against the previous close of 1140.35 points. The dollar NSE-50 index also advanced by 29.55 to 1029.40 points from 999.85 points. The Midcap rose by 42.60 points to 1409.15 points as against its previous week's close of 1366.55 points.

The total turnover on the NSE increased by 18.3 billion to 84.6 billion as against previous week's turnover of Rs 66.3 billion.

UNI