Mumbai: The market extended its gains to second straight session, soaring by 56 points as stocks rallied sharply on sustained short-covering by operators and retail investors coupled with selective purchases by Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs).

Domestic players, which were believed to be extremely short in the Futures and Options (F&O) segment, made heavy purchases in as bid to cover their positions at the concluding session of September contract in the derivatives.

The BSE Benchmark 30-share Index opened on a firm note at 5545.26 and later spurted to the day's high of 5598.55 before ending the day at 5583.61 as against yesterday's (Sep 29, 2004) close of 5527.56, a net gain of 56.05 points or 1.01 per cent.

Crediting the price upsurge partly to a robust 7.4 per cent growth in the economy in the first quarter of current fiscal and the strong trend on Wall Street last night, brokers said the market seemed to have temporarily discounted concerns over soaring crude oil prices as the Government ruled out any price hike in petrol and diesel.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite Index ended up by 58.84 points and 24.07 points respectively.

Foreign Institutional Investors, which have reported good net investments of Rs 276.10 crore in the first three days of the week, were fairly heavy buyers in select blue chip stocks.

Blue chip counters including RIL, Bajaj Auto, Hindalco, Satyam Computers, Tata Motors, Wipro, Bharti Tele-Venture, Infosys Tech, Ranbaxy, L&T and Grasim recorded impressive gains of fresh buying support.