Saturday, September 3 2005 11:02 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: Stocks: After a brief pause in weekly upsurge, the BSE benchmark 30-share index (sensex) once again turned strong and scaled new peaks of 7928.07 and even ended the week at new closing high of 7899.77 on renewed buying spree despite concerns over sky-high global oil prices.

The sensex scaled all-time high, both at the intra-trade and the closing levels, well supported by increased activity by institutional investors.

In the week to September 3, 2005, the Bombay Stock Exchange's (BSE) sensex overcame the initial resistance and flared up to 7928.07 before ending the week at new record peaks of 7899.77 as against last weekend's close of 7680.22, a net rise of 219.55 points or 2.86 per cent.

The sensex was corrected by only 100.54 points or 1.29 per cent in the preceding week after a massive jump of 1626 points or 26.42 per cent in one of the longest weekly winning string for 16 weeks.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) have stepped up activity after a slowdown in net investments for a couple of weeks. FIIs reported net investments of Rs 952 crore in the first four trading days of the week.

Private Mutual Funds too were active and made purchases of Rs 578.78 crore in the same period.

Soaring global oil prices, however, remained a cause of concern among investors. The market had reacted negatively, shedding 46 points on August 29 (Monday), when crude price breached the much feared $ 70 a barrel level.

The sky-high oil prices for the long term would affect world economy and in turn, have adverse impact on bourses.

The Government is expected to announce a hike in petrol and diesel prices to lessen the strain on economy.

Oil PSUs like IOC, HPCL, BPCL and IBP together have lost about Rs 14,700 crore in revenues on fuel sale this fiscal and the total revenue loss may touch a whopping Rs 40,000 crore by the end of 2005-06 if prices are not raised.

Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), State Bank of India (SBI), Infosys Tech, Satyam Computer Tata Motor, Tata Steel, Maruti Udyog and Hero Honda scored impressive gains.

Among other indices, the broad-based BSE-100 Index shot up by 110.75 points to end the week at 4229.51 from last weekend's close of 4118.76.

The BSE-200 Index and the Dollex-200 were quoted sharply up at 1023.62 and 387.77 at the weekend compared to previous weekend's close of 996.11 and 379.24 respectively.

The BSE-500 Index zoomed by 94.48 points to finish the week at 3308.24 from preceding weekend's close of 3213.76 and the Dollex ended the week sharply higher at 1475.70 from 1441.91 at the last weekend.

On the National Stock Exchange (NSE), the S&P CNX Nifty and the S&P CNX Defty rebounded by 58.75 points and 32.65 points to close the week at 2415.80 and 1901.15 from last weekend's close of 2357.05 and 1868.50 respectively. The CNX Nifty Junior recovered by 108.90 points to conclude the week at 5080.95 from 5972.05 at the preceding weekend.

During the week, the volume of business on the BSE and the NSE was relatively high at Rs 18,145 crore and Rs 30,678 crore compared to last week's turnover of Rs 14,596 crore and Rs 30,274 crore respectively.