Friday, May 20 2005 16:44 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: Shrugging off early nervousness, the Sensex today (May 20, 2005) rallied smartly to post yet another rise of 21 points in scrip-specific activity on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on sustained purchases by Indian Financial Institutions.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs), which reported net sales of Rs 438.50 crore on Wednesday, however, remained sellers in heavy-weighted counters.

After falling to the day's low of 6438.60 at early stages of the session, the BSE Benchmark 30-share Index made a strong turnaround and rose past 6500-level before ending the day at 6499.50 as against yesterday's close of 6478.94, a net gain of 20.56 points or 0.32 per cent.

Domestic funds, which have been continued buyers in the equities for the last couple of weeks, were believed to have made heavy purchases in mid-cap as well as select blue chip counters, particularly after the midsession.

Local institutions reported net purchases of over Rs 1000 crore in the week's first three trading sessions.

Infosys Technologies, Satyam Computers, Wipro, SBI, ICICI Bank BHEL, L&T, Ranbaxy and Hero Honda recorded smart gains.

HPCL, IOC and BPCL also scored handsome gains on fairly heavy buying support prompted by expectations of a hike in petrol and diesel prices.

A marginal fall in inflation rate by 0.06 per cent to 5.61 per cent in the week ended May 7, also had sentimental impact on the market.

ONGC, however, showed moderate losses due to selling pressure from hedge funds.