The Hindu Business Line : Fired by gas

THE stock of Reliance Industries shot up in afternoon trade on Thursday on a report that the company had found gas in two fields in the Bay of Bengal. Investors, retail and institutional, rushed to buy shares of the integrated giant throughout afternoon and late trade.

A foreign broking firm had in February tipped the company's stock to rally sharply to new levels in the short-term. The stock rose 3.3 per cent on Thursday to close at Rs 555.95 on the BSE.

While about 36 lakh shares were traded on the BSE, more than 77 lakh shares were traded on the NSE.

The total delivery was about 25 lakh shares, a dealer said.

Forex gains

THE stock market grapevine has it that Hindustan Lever is poised for windfall treasury gains in the last quarter.

According to a source, the company had taken a bet against the dollar and has been proved right now. Though there are several estimates doing the rounds of the market, all concur that the treasury gains will be EPS-positive.

The source said one foreign institutional investor, which had offloaded a large amount of the company's stock just recently, has returned to the counter and has been making heavy purchases over the past several days.

The HLL stock closed marginally higher at Rs 154.80 on the BSE. About five lakh shares were traded on that exchange but the volume on NSE surged to over 26 lakh shares.

Dinesh Narayanan

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