Tuesday, October 4 2005 15:52 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: Unstoppable bulls kicked up the Bombay Stock Exchange's benchmark Sensex past the 8,800 points barrier in early trade as foreign and domestic institutional investors bought heavily in auto and technology stocks.

The Sensex, which struggled for long at 8,774 points barricade, spurted to trade at 8,800.24 revealing a handsome gain of 102.59 points at 1445 hrs as index-related auto stocks such as Bajaj Auto, Maruti Udyog, Tata Motors and Hero Honda gained significant ground following reports of rise in vehicle sales in September month.

Other blue-chips that followed suit were Larsen and Toubro, ACC, Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), HDFC Bank, Tata Steel and Reliance Energy.

Crediting the fresh rally in share prices to the strong 8.1 per cent GDP growth in the first quarter of this fiscal, brokers said investors expected the encouraging second quarter working results to boost the economic growth.

The Confederation of Indian Industry (CIIs) also was optimistic that strong prospects of kharif production and encouraging performance by industrial and services sector may help the economy register 7.3 per cent growth in 2005-06.

Strong dollar against rupee extended support to technology stocks such as Infosys, Satyam Computers, Tata Consultancy and Wipro on expectations that the industry, which has 60 per cent revenue from the United States (US) market, might boost second quarter financial results.