Mumbai: A sharp rally in heavyweight counter Infosys Technologies lifted the SENSEX by another 21 points at close in an otherwise volatile activity on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on December 12 on fairly good speculative buying and fresh purchases by Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs).

Attributing consistent demand in IT bellwether to cheaper share price in domestic markets than the ADR on the NASDAQ, brokers said foreign funds were continuous buyers in the counter for the past couple of days.

Speculators too were believed to have cornered good quantity of shares of the IT major, they added.

Reflecting the gains in Infosys Technologies, the BSE Benchmark 30-share Index which opened higher at 3316.84 and moved in a range of 3331.27 and 3299.48, later ended at 3324.48 as against yesterday's close of 3303.27, netting a gain of 21.21 points, extending its winning streak to third successive session.

The broad-based BSE-100 Index rose by 10.74 points to 1632.24 from previous close of 1621.50.

Among PSU (Public Sector Undertaking) stocks, Engineers India Ltd (EIL) hogged the limelight scoring impressive gains on news that the government would soon invite final price bids for EIL. CMC Ltd also were in keen demand and recorded hefty gains.

Some bank shares like ICICI Bank, Corporation Bank, HDFC Bank, Federal Bank, Bank of Baroda and some others registered good gains on buying by operators.

However, key stocks like SBI and MTNL showed marked losses on selling pressure.

PTI