Friday, July 22 2005 17:07 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: The Sensex today (July 22, 2005) zoomed by 118.93 points and after crossing the psychological figure of 7400, ended at an all-time high of 7423.25 on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on heavy foreign fund buying along with short-covering by operators.

Today's gain in Sensex was the biggest single-session rise since February 28, 2005 when it had shot up by 144.14 points.

Frantic buying by Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) forced operators to cover their short positions ahead of the expiry of last day of future and option segment yesterday, brokers said.

The BSE 30-share sensitive index opened marginally higher at 7306.64 as against yesterday's close of 7304.32. Thereafter it dropped temporarily to a low of 7273.19.

Later it revived on heavy buying with the index shooting up to a historical intra-day high of 7429.95 and closed at an all-time high of 7423.25, showing whopping 1.63 per cent rally over yesterday's close.

Buying interest was so strong that even some of the negative reports such as lower-than-expected Q1 results by Wipro and a 4.14 per cent rise in inflation rates were completely ignored by the market, brokers said.

Among the gainers, BHEL displayed the biggest rally when it skyrocketed by Rs 50.10 or 5.33 per cent to close at a life-time high of Rs 990.55 on heavy institutional buying.

Excellent Q1 results by some of the leading companies also boosted the market sentiment.