Sensex soars by 104 pts again

Sensex soars by 104 pts again
ENS ECONOMIC BUREAU

MUMBAI, JANUARY 10: Not letting go the opportunity, bulls extended their New Year dance for the second successive week. Share values and indices hit record highs on Monday following a sharp jump in the Nasdaq composite index of the US and other world markets. The benchmark Sensex of the BSE gained 103.91 points, or 1.92 per cent higher, at 5,518.39, off an intra-day all-time high of 5,668.28.

The session commenced with a wide gap in share prices with Sensex rising to a high in early stages in line with a sharp rally in the kerb deals last Saturday. The rally had been prompted by a sharp turnaround in the Nasdaq composite index that recorded a biggest single-session rise of 4.17 per cent on Friday evening. However, the last week-end Nasdaq rally failed to bring back fresh interest in all the infotech stocks which had witnessed a sharp downslide.

Infosys Technologies was very volatile, hitting an intra-day high of Rs 14,200 and a low of Rs 12,114.45. The share which was very weak in morning deals, perked uplater on analysts' forecasts that the firm would post about 90 per cent growth in net profit in the third quarter. It ended at Rs 13,700 with a handsome gain of Rs 532.15. Sensex later fluctuated erratically in a wide range of 5668.28 and 5459.97 before closing at a new record at 5518.39 as against last week-end close of 5414.48. The BSE-100 index shot up by 33.84 points to 2803.60 from previous close of 2769.76.

Dealers said software shares were mixed with speculators cutting losses in front-line stocks after building positions at high levels early last week. "Undervalued cyclical and fast moving consumer goods shares remained in focus. There is basically slow churning of portfolios," said Jatin Sarvaiya, managing director at Triumph International Finance India. Foreign funds were reportedly net buyers in cyclical stocks like Reliance, Tisco and some others besides software scrips like Digital Equipment and Zee Telefilms. Domestic financial institutions bought shares of Satyam Computer and a number ofIndian stocks.