Wednesday, May 4 2005 17:35 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: The Sensex today (May 4, 2005) extended its rising trend for the third straight day and rose by another 72.78 points to close at 6289.55 due to all-round heavy buying activity on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).

The BSE 30-share Sensitive Index opened marginally better at 6218.95 against yesterday's close of 6216.77 and continued to rise sharply on increased buying and after touching a high of 6295.14, settled at 6289.55, showing a smart rise of 1.17 per cent over the previous close.

Firm Asian advices after the US Federal Reserve raised key interest rate by a quarter percentage point to three per cent also aided the smart rise in prices, a broker said.

However, the rise in US rates was ignored by the local market-men as the hike of 0.25 per cent was anticipated and was already factored in, another broker said.

In the Asian markets, Taiwan rose by 14.54 points, KOSPI by 15.53 points, Hang Seng by 51.07 points and Singapore ST index by 12.70 points.

World crude oil prices fell below the $ 49.50 per barrel level also partly cheered up the market sentiment and as a result some of the refinery counters attracted renewed buying.

Small-cap shares remained in the limelight on heavy buying by operators as well as retail investors and the BSE-Smallcap Index shot up by 82.29 to 3891.29.

Elsewhere, metal, banking and pharma shares also firmed up smartly on goods support and the BSE-Metal rallied by 81.28 points to 5597.95, Bankex by 48.68 points to 3589.17 and the BSE-HC index by 44.61 points to 2477.18.