Sensex gains 12 points

MUMBAI, Nov 20: Pivotals moved widely on the Bombay Stock Exchange today on alternative bouts of buying and selling. After a weak spell, sh...

MUMBAI, Nov 20: Pivotals moved widely on the Bombay Stock Exchange today on alternative bouts of buying and selling. After a weak spell, share prices rallied during the mid-session on fresh support from financial institutions coupled with short covering pushing Sensex to 3500-mark. However, at the end few scrips declined on profit-taking. The volume of business remained brisks at over Rs 1,000 crore.

The BSE sensitive index spurted from the intra-day low of 3390.71 to the session’s high 3504.41 before closing at 3466.86 with a small gain of 12.21 compared to the previous level of 3454.65. The BSE-100 index also recovered by 5.10 points to 1503.07 from previous close of 1497.97.

Brokers said that the sentiment was weak during the earlier part of the session due to fluid political situation. However, share prices turned better around mid-session on rumours that the government might drop the DMK.

Select index-based scrips rallied as bear operators covered their short positions ahead as the current account coming to end tomorrow. The domestic institutions continued their purchases mainly on Tata Steel, Telco, Larsen and others. On the NSE, equity prices rose moderately on fresh support from leading institutions and investors. The price trend was helped by hectic short-covering in ITC which spread to other index-based scrips. The NSE-50 index opened at 987.70 and closed at 995.15, showing a rise of 7.30. The Midcap index opened at 1135.90 and closed at 1143.55, showing a gain of 7.45 over the previous close of 1136.10. The total turnover rose sharply to Rs 2,135.94 crore.