Mumbai, May 22: Not just P. Chidambaram and the watchdogs, the sensex also owes it to domestic financial institutions and mutual funds for the recovery from the stroke on Monday noon.

Brokers said domestic institutions led by the Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) made brisk purchases in blue-chips, putting life back on to the indices. Mutual funds, too, made selective purchases.

Though finance ministry officials told newspersons in the capital that foreign institutional investors (FIIs) were net buyers today, brokers said a clear picture would emerge only tomorrow when the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) releases the figures.

“Had the buying from domestic institutions not come, then we could have been staring at the possibility of yet another suspension of trading,” a broker remarked.

According to Dilip Davda, analyst, KG Vora Securities, the impact of domestic institutions could be ascertained from the fact that many scrips managed to recoup their losses from the initial burst of heavy shelling.

A case in point is Reliance Industries: the scrip hit a low of Rs 806 after opening at Rs 989 and rising to a high of Rs 994.70. However, when the suspension on trading was lifted at noon, the scrip recovered to finish at Rs 931.60, a gain of Rs 125 from the intra-day low.

“It was not only in RIL alone that the local institutions were buying. They purchased shares of TCS, ITC, Hindustan Lever, Gujarat Ambuja Cements, Ashok Leyland and many others. As a result, many stocks recovered from their day’s low,” brokers said.

They said mutual funds , flush with cash from their new offerings, were also buying shares. A. K. Sridhar, chief investment officer at UTI Mutual Fund, said the mutual fund fed on the bargain counters.

He said funds were sitting on cash to the extent of 10-12 per cent of their assets under management. Part of the money was invested today, he added.