Friday, November 25 2005 17:08 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: The Sensex today (Nov 25,2005) extended its sharp rise for the third straight day today on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and shot up further by 109.17 points to end at a new high of 8853.21 on hectic buying activity. The BSE benchmark 30-share senstive index, after a firm start at 8760.70 as against yesterday's close of 8744.04, shot up to an intra-day new peak of 8863.93 and later ended at a high of 8853.21, showing a steep rally of 1.25 per cent over the previous close.

The previous historic closing high was 8799.96 recorded on October four and the all-time intra-day high was 8821.84 on October five.

With today's rise, the index has gained by a whopping 318.24 points since November 23.

Heavy buying activity, mainly by Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) and good support by operators pushed the Sensex to new highs, brokers said.

With a net investment of Rs 311.80 crores on Wednesday, FIIs have made a total net purchase of equities worth Rs 903.10 crore during the week till November 23.

Buying was so strong that even a rise in inflation which rose marginally to 4.2 per cent for the week ended November 12, from 4.14 per cent in the previous week was ignored by market men.

However, the petrochemical major, Reliance Industries closed weak due to fresh selling after the Bombay High court put on hold the demerger scheme of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), brokers said.

The major gainers were Infosys Tech, L&T, HDFC, Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), Maruti, Tata Motors, Satam Comp, Grasim, Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL), Ranbaxy, SBI, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), ACC, Bharti, Hero Honda, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Reliance Engeries Limited (REL), Bajaj Auto, Dr Reddy and ITC on frantic buying.

However, RIL, Tata Power, ONGC and Indalco closed weak.

The broad-based BSE-100 Index shot up by 61.41 points to 4663.97 from 4602.56 yesterday (Nov 24,2005).

The BSE-200 Index and the Dollex-200 also rallied to 1116.15 and 405.91 from yesterday's close of 1101.68 and 401.18 respectively. The BSE-500 Index firmed up by 43.73 points to 3565.79 from the previous close of 3522.06 and theDollex-30 ended higher at 1587.70 from 1570.18.

Among other indices, BSE-CG zoomed by 172.16 points to 5293.77 from the previous close of 5121.61.

The volume of business was higher at Rs 2759.33 crores from yesterday's level of Rs 2604.43 crore. RIL remained the highest traded security with a turnover of Rs 180.39 crore followed by Rel Cap (Rs 159.12 crore), SBI (Rs 105.42 crore), Infosys (Rs 81.01 crore) and Tata Steel (Rs 74.44 crore).

In the Specified group 153, including 26 index-based shares closed firm, while 46 declined.

Infosys Tech rallied by 39.50 to 2740.40, L&T by 43.65 to 1643.80, BHEL by 46.75 to 1385.15, HDFC by 31.95 to 1118.00, Maruti by 20.95 to 620.15, Tata Motors by 18.20 to 573.90, Satyam by 14.65 to 657.45, Grasim by 13.80 to 1365.05, HLL by 10.00 to 186.75, TCS by 9.40 to 1532.95, ACC by 7.65 to 514.75, SBI by 6.55 to 907.05 and Ranbaxy by 8.85 to 370.70.

However, RIL fell by 1.05 to 843.30, Tata Power by 2.45 to 439.75, ONGC by 5.35 to 1019.75 and Hindalco by 0.25 to 124.20.