Friday, March 4 2005 18:34 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: The Sensex today (Mar 4, 2005) touched yet another milestone, breached key resistance levels and spurted to life-time closing high of 6849.48 at the stock exchange, propelled by sustained hectic all-round buying, led by foreign funds active participation.

The frenzied demand spread across the board from the onset of business with the benchmark initially piercing through the crucial 6800-mark and then cruised past the 6850-barrier to historic peaks of 6864.62 in afternoon deals, before settling at 6849.48, another steep rise of 64.76 or 0.95 per cent, a broker said.

A positive budget and strong corporate fundamentals were the main driving force behind the buoyancy with operators confident and upbeat on the Sensex reaching the 7000-level by next week if the current trend persists, he added.

FII continued to invest heavily by putting up a whopping Rs 10,306 crores during the year and Rs 1579.50 crores in just three days.

Operators and domestic institutions also made heavy buying after Finance Minister P Chidambaram's statement that the genuine business expenditure would not be brought under the fringe benefit tax proposed in the Budget, the broker added.

Several index heavyweights like RIL, HDFC, ITC, Hidalco, Bajaj Auto, Infosystech, REL, Tata Motors, Zee Tele, Maurti, BHEL, Grasim, L&T and HDFC Bank made handsome progress which pushed the Sensex to all-time high.