Friday, May 27 2005 17:50 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: The Sensex today (May 27, 2005) continued its rising trend for the seventh straight session and firmed up further by 36.94 points to close above the 6700-mark due to persistent heavy funds buying on the stock exchange, Mumbai (BSE).

Firm global advices and fall in inflation rates also boosted the market sentiment, a broker said.

The BSE benchmark 30-shares opened firm at 6689.56 as against yesterday's close of 6670.78 and later, shot up to an intra-day high of 6772.74, before closing at 6707.72, showing a gain of 0.55 per cent over the last close.

Prices in metal, IT and FMCG, segments registered smart gains on good buying and BSE-Metal rallied by 82.05 points to 5598.39, BSE-IT by 26.61 points to 2724.33 and BSE-FMGC by 30.73 points to 1176.18.

Dow Jones Industrial Average shot up by 79.80 points, Nasdaq Composite Index by 21.12 points, Hang Seng by 144.79 points, Nikkie by 164.39 points and Taiwan by 52.13 points.

Inflation continued its downward spree for the third consecutive week ended May 14 and was quoted at 5.55 per cent.

Among the top gainers, ITC rallied by Rs 38.85 to 1570.35 and Infosys Tech by Rs 30.30 to Rs 2231.75 on heavy buying.

The steep rise in ITC was mainly due to the company's excellent results as the net profit rose smartly by 37.5 per cent to Rs 2191.4 crore for the year 2004-05 as compared to Rs 1592.8 crore in the previous fiscal.

Infosys rallied on Thursday's reports that the company has listed its second sponsored American Depository Receipts (ADR) at $ 68.71 at Nasdaq.