Mumbai: A fresh bout of buying spree helped the market bounce back with a vengeance after resisting pressure for the last three trading sessions and end higher by 43 points today (Dec 9, 2004) even as retailers and traders were forced to cover short positions during the day. The BSE Benchmark 30-share Index opened moderately higher at 6274.24 and later fluctuated between 6319.01 and 6241.27 before ending the day at 6304.27 as against yesterday's close of 6261.52, a net gain of 42.75 points or 0.68 per cent.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs), which reported fairly heavy net investments of Rs 305.20 crore on Tuesday, reportedly were heavy buyers again in key stocks in reaction to the Government's move to give a big push to the short-term debt market, brokers said.

The capital market will get additional flow of funds from January 2005 following a decision by finance ministry to switch off a scheme for central public sector undertakings to park their surplus cash with the Government.

Operators and traders were forced to cover up their sales made during early trading as FIIs stepped up activity in the latter part of the session, brokers added.

Domestic financial institutions, however, continued to book profits at higher levels.

FII activity was seen in key counters including SBI, Tata Motors, Bajaj Auto, Maruti Udyog, HDFC, ACC, HPCL, BHEL, ITC, ICICI Bank and Bharti Tele-Venture.

HLL, L&T, Hindalco, REL and Cipla recorded marked losses due to selling pressure.