The Hindu : Business : Sensex closes at historic high of 6498

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Dec 25, 2004

Business

Business

Sensex closes at historic high of 6498

MUMBAI, DEC. 24. Led by a sharp rally in Reliance Industries, shares shot up on hectic buying by foreign funds and the Sensex zoomed to cross the psychological figure of 6500, before closing at a new historic high of 6498.06 on the Bombay Stock Exchange today.

The petrochem giant, Reliance Industries, and the top heavyweight, remained in limelight and finished with sharp gains, boosting the market sentiment as operators and institutional investors went on short covering ahead of the company's much-awaited board meeting next week. The BSE-30 share sensitive index opened remarkably higher at 6485.26 against yesterday's close of 6441.85 and gyrated between 6507.94 and 6463.18 before concluding at 6498.06, up by 56.21 points.

Foreign institutional investors continued their buying spree and were said to be picking up blue chip counters at every decline.

Most of the refinery counters attracted renewed buying interest and finished with sharp gains.

Metal shares, mainly Hindalco, Tisco, Jindal Iron, Jindal Steel, Sesa Goa and SAIL were in keen demand and ended with marked gains pushing the sectoral BSE-Metal Index sharply up by 147.27 points or 2.58 per cent to close at 5846.70.

Dealers said buying was also attributed to expectations of good working results in the third quarter by most of the companies in the next month.

Dealers said buying was also attributed to hopes of good working third quarter results by most of the companies in the next month. Besides Infosys Technologies, most of the other software counters attracted renewed buying interest.

Second-line shares from B1, B2, Z and T group companies continued to be in good demand and most of them registered their 52-week highs on retail investors buying interest.

The broad-based BSE-100 index advanced further by 23.99 points to 3523.49.

The volume of business was higher at Rs. 2,238.89 crores against Rs. 1,963.87 crores. RIL remained at the top with the highest turnover of Rs. 167.92 crores followed by SBI (Rs. 74.71 crores), Tata Steel (Rs. 74.40 crores), and Infosys (Rs. 72.64 crores). The BSE-200 and the Dollex-200 were quoted higher at 871.53 and 331.21 against 864.69 and 328.76 respectively. The BSE-500 moved up by 22.25 points to 2728.10 and the Dollex-30 to 1217.74 from 1207.76.

In the specified group, 112 scrips registered sharp to moderate gains while 84 finished with losses.

PTI

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Business