Tuesday, September 27 2005 17:59 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: The Sensex today (Sept 27, 2005) hit a new peak of 8585.76 before heavy profit selling pruned the gains, still ending 47 points up at 8525.52 in highly volatile trade amid squaring up activity ahead of expiry of derivatives contract.

The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Benchmark 30-share Index (Sensex) opened firm at 8497.25 and later moved erratically in a range of 8585.76 and 8444.98 before ending the day at a new closing peak at 8525.52 against yesterday's (Sept 26, 2005) close of 8478.91, a net rise of 46.61 points or 0.55 per cent.

The Sensex scaled an intra-trade high at 8585.76 surpassing earlier peak of 8521.75 touched on September 21.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) as well as Indian Financial Institutions were believed to be heavy buyers at the lower levels while booking profits at the day's higher levels.

Operators and retail investors were seen squaring up positions before the end of September contract in Futures and Options (F&O) segment on Thursday.

The market is considered to be strongly bullish for the long term and another sharp rally is not ruled out after announcements of second quarter earnings by corporates from October 10 onwards, brokers said.

Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank expected agriculture growth to be 'normal' this fiscal and stuck to its average annual inflation target of 5-5.5 per cent for 2005-06 despite the high global oil prices.

Also, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said that the stock market reflected the fundamentals of the economy and so far there was no manipulations reported in the market.

FIIs reported net investments of Rs 199.30 crore while domestic mutual funds made net purchases of Rs 133.44 crore on Monday after a slowdown in activity on last Friday.