Mumbai: The market today (Dec 16, 2004) once again climbed to new lifetime closing peaks of 6420.38 in low volume, driven by unabated FII inflows into the booming bourses.

Jumping yesterday's (Dec 15, 2004) record high, the BSE Benchmark Index spurted to a new intra-day high of 6437.00 before ending the day at 6420.38, the highest close in the history of the BSE, as against yesterday's close of 6402.29, a net gain of 18.09 points or 0.28 per cent.

Riding piggyback on the inflows of foreign investments, the market resisted pressure of profit booking at the dizzy heights by operators and retailers and managed to settle in the positive territory.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs), which reported relatively low net investments of Rs 182.40 crore on Tuesday (Dec 14, 2004) and made selective purchases during the day, have pumped in about $9.43 billion (nearly Rs 42,900 crore) till December 14, making it the highest ever in any calendar year.

Sell-off by domestic investors was also attributed to a firm trend in global oil price. Oil futures prices rose above $44 a barrel on December 15.

Commenting on the price rally that entered the fourth day in a row, brokers said the market is likely to continue its upward march as there is no aggressive selling pressure from any quarters.

Software and select auto counters attracted fairly good buying interest and closed with sharp gains.

Blue chips including Tata Motors, Bajaj Auto, L&T, HPCL, Infosys Tech, HDFC Bank, Grasim, Dr Reddy's, ACC and GACL scored impressive gains.