Mumbai: Share values continued their upward march on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on December 2, lifting the SENSEX by another 41.54 points to end at 3270.36 on heavy purchases by operators and institutional investors.

Encouraged by fresh purchases by leading foreign funds, which have been making net investments in old economy sector, bull operators were seen making fresh commitments in several frontline shares, brokers said.

Front-line IT bellwethers like Infosys Tech, Satyam Computer and Wipro were in the limelight on good buying by Foreign Institutional Investors.

Led by oil major HPCL, most of the Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) stocks were also investors' choice on expectation of positive outcome in the forthcoming meeting of Cabinet Committee on Disinvestment.

Many second-rung software counters attracted increased activity and closed with sharp gains on speculative-cum-investment buying. Second-line old-economy stocks were also in keen demand.

The BSE-30 share sensitive index opened strong at 3247.60 but declined to a low of 3238.89 only to bounce back on hectic purchases to 3277.37 and ended at 3270.36, rising by 1.29 per cent.

The broad-based BSE-100 index also shot up by 30.67 points to 1624.70 from previous close of 1594.03.

Meanwhile, the decision of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to allow the stock exchanges to have freedom to select an underlying security for derivatives trading also partly boosted the sentiment.

PTI