Thursday, December 23 2004 18:11 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: Led by top heavyweight Reliance Industries (RIL), share prices staged a smart recovery pushing the Sensex up by 28.19 points to close at 6441.85 at the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) today (Dec 22, 2004) on renewed buying by foreign funds, cutting short overnights decline. RIL, the petro-chem giant, continued to be in keen demand on sustained buying by institutional investors coupled with short-covering by operators ahead of the company's board meeting on Monday (Dec 27, 2004) to propose buyback of shares.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) who sold shares worth Rs 49.40 crore on Monday, became active and picked up shares worth Rs 179.90 crore on Tuesday, turning the table in favour of bulls, dealers said.

The BSE-30 share sensitive index opened slightly lower at 6410.30 as against yesterday's (Dec 22, 2004) close of 6413.66, but gradually moved upwards to a high of 6455.69 before concluding at 6441.85, a rise of 0.44 per cent over yesterday's close.

Elsewhere, banking shares hogged the limelight on persistent speculative-cum-investment buying on expectation of more merger plans to come forth. Yesterday, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has given in-principle, approval to the proposed merger of Bank of India (BOI) with Union Bank of India (UBI).

Consolidation in banking sector would give advantage to PSU banks, a broker commented.

IT shares, however, remained weak on reports that the Infosys Technologies has cautioned about the sustainability of its profit margins or levels of profitability. The company made these comments in US, reports Crisil MarketWire.