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Sensex completes a 'hat-trick' of all-time highs, touches 4965, closes at 4905; Nifty up to 1421; rupee at 43.49 to US $

The Bombay Stock Exchange opened on a firm note on Monday morning on renewed speculative buying interest. Pivotals were steady on fresh speculative buying.

Today, the Sensex opened at a record high of 4953.73 points, touched an intra-day high of 4965.79 and a low of 4900.87 and ended at 4905.89, up 35.23 points or 0.72 per cent over Friday's close of 4870.66. The close is an all-time high, the third in a row. On August 26 and 27 (that is, at the end of the last two trading sessions), the Sensex had closed at all-time highs.)

For the first time ever, the index touched 4900 today.

However, it receded to 4920-4930 levels on profit-booking at high levels by domestic financial institutions. NIIT zoomed almost five per cent. Grasim, L&T, ACC and Gujarat Ambuja touched new highs. Ranbaxy was being quoted at Rs 1124, a new high. India Cements hit the upper limit of the circuit breaker quite early.

Pharmaceutical and cement shares continued to hog the limelight. Institutional buyers were busy at the counters of Reliance, State Bank of India and Hindustan Lever. Automobile and power shares were firm on speculative buying.

CMC Ltd and Navneet Publications were among the shares that hit the lower limit of the circuit-breaker.

Marketmen said that being the opening day of the current trading cycle, there was heavy buying by foreign institutional investors and domestic operators in index-based scrips. But profit- taking by financial institutions at higher levels led the Sensex to close at lower levels.

''If the positive sentiment continues, the Sensex may cross the 5000-mark in the next one or two trading sessions,'' a broker said.

Stocks witnessed an across-the-board rise with Telco ending at Rs 363, Ranbaxy at Rs 1125, Tisco at Rs 172, HLL at Rs 2700, Colgate- Palmolive at Rs 295, Infosys Technologies at Rs 5,500, Satyam Computers at Rs 890, ITC at Rs 1030, L&T at Rs 409 and Reliance at Rs 189.

The BSE-100 index closed at 2197.64, marking a rise of 13.76 points over the last close of 2183.88. The BSE-200 and Dollex indices ended 3.07 and 2.09 points higher at 505.41 and 193.10 respectively.

The BSE-500 index ended 7.1 points higher at 1489.69.

The total turnover on the BOLT network of the BSE was Rs 23.20 billion from trading in 105.1 million shares.

Ranbaxy Labs topped the turnover list with Rs 2.49 billion followed by Reliance (Rs 1.53 billion) and Telco (Rs 1.34 billion). Other scrips that recorded a good turnover were Zee Telefilms, SBI, Tata Tea, ACC, Tisco, L&T, Pentafour Software, ITC, Digital Equipment, Satyam Computers, Colgate and Videocon.

At the National Stock Exchange, the benchmark S&P CNX Nifty rose four points or 0.28 per cent over Friday's close to 1421.50, again an all-time high, the third in a row.

Since July, the Sensex has touched and gone past the 4700 mark several times. On July 14, the Sensex closed at 4710; on July 19, it closed at 4717, touching 4757 in intra-day trading; on July 22, it closed at 4729; on August 18, it closed at 4705 and on August 23, it closed at 4730, touching 4767 in intra-day trading. On August 26 and 27, the Sensex posted all-time high record closes at 4800 level.

The NSE Nifty's closing values soared past the 1350 mark on several occasions since July. On July 19, the S&P CNX Nifty closed at 1350; on August 18, it closed at 1363; and on August 23, it closed at 1369. Like the BSE's Sensex, the Nifty closed at all-time high levels of above 1400 on August 26 and 27.

The rupee was steady in the inter-bank foreign exchange market and closed at 43.49 to the US dollar, up from Friday's closing level of 43.50. The rupee maintained its stance in spite of month-end demand for the US dollar.

UNI

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