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Indian shares end at 43-month high on increased fund inflows
Wednesday, 05 November 2003, 20:30 IST
MUMBAI: India's blue-chip share market index ended with moderate gains Tuesday, extending its upward movement for the third consecutive session, on sustained foreign fund investments fuelled by hopes of higher economic growth.
Dealers said that the market opened little changed after closing above the magical 5,000 mark in the previous session for the second time in the nearly two-decade old history of the benchmark Bombay Stock Exchange index.
The key market index moved within a close range in the early trade as gains in technology stocks was offset by profit taking in shares of cement and automobile companies after recent sharp gains.
The blue-chip equities, however, managed to inch higher towards the end of the trading session on hopes that the foreign institutional investors would continue to pump in large-scale investments in the months ahead.
The stock market barometer 30-share Bombay Stock Exchange sensitive index or Sensex closed at 5,097.84, representing a gain of 34.81 points or 0.69 percent over its previous session's close.
The market index closed Monday at 5,063.03, a level not seen in three-and-a-half years.
Analysts say the crossing of the crucial 5,000-mark comes as a major boost for investors who had badly burnt their fingers in the last few years dormant domestic stock market.
"The up-trend on the bourses is a reflection of the optimism being expressed on the front of the country's economic growth in the current fiscal year," said a fund manager with a foreign brokerage firm.
Reinforcing optimism of higher economic growth in the current fiscal year, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the country's central bank, Monday said the Indian economy would grow between 6.5 and seven percent in 2003-04.
The projected seven percent economic growth figure will be the strongest full-year expansion in the last six years. The last time India's economy grew over seven percent was in 1996-97, when it touched 7.8 percent.
"Sharply higher levels of foreign fund activities in the trading ring has also boosted the sentiment of local investors," the fund manager told IANS.
Foreign funds have pumped more than $4.6 billion into Indian stocks so far in 2003 compared to about $763 million in the whole of 2002. In October, foreign funds invested $1.5 billion, their highest net investment in a single month.
In the old economy sector, shares of Dr. Reddy's Laboratories gained 7.9 percent to touch 
1,415.50. The company said it had received final U.S. Federal Drug and Administration approval to sell an anti-hypertension drug.
Ranbaxy Laboratories, India's largest drug maker by sales, rose 1.7 percent to 1,011.95 and Gujarat Ambuja Cements advanced 6.8 percent to 282.35 on fresh buying interest after early weakness.
In the tech sector, Hyderabad-based Satyam Computer ended 6.8 percent higher at 340.45 tracking a sharp jump in the American depository shares of the company listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
HCL Technologies, a New Delhi-based software development and services major, closed with a gain of 1.7 percent at 239.55 and Infosys Technologies, India's largest listed software exporter, was up 0.5 percent at 5,006.85.
Source: IANS
1,415.50. The company said it had received final U.S. Federal Drug and Administration approval to sell an anti-hypertension drug.
Ranbaxy Laboratories, India's largest drug maker by sales, rose 1.7 percent to 1,011.95 and Gujarat Ambuja Cements advanced 6.8 percent to 282.35 on fresh buying interest after early weakness.
In the tech sector, Hyderabad-based Satyam Computer ended 6.8 percent higher at 340.45 tracking a sharp jump in the American depository shares of the company listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
HCL Technologies, a New Delhi-based software development and services major, closed with a gain of 1.7 percent at 239.55 and Infosys Technologies, India's largest listed software exporter, was up 0.5 percent at 5,006.85.
Source: IANS