Wednesday, January 4 2006 17:05 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: Buoyed by persistent heavy buying by foreign funds and well supported by retail investors, the Sensex today (Jan 4, 2006) zoomed by a whopping 109 points to end at a new peak of 9648.08 on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).

The Benchmark 30-share index opened the day on a weaker note at 9523.29 as against yesterday's close of 9539.37, but shot up to touch an intra-day peak of 9664.94. Thereafter, it softened on select selling and closed at 9648.08, showing a steep rally of 108.71 points or 1.14 per cent over the previous day's close.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FII), which made a net investment of Rs 477.70 crore on Monday, continued to purchase heavily and retail investors also made good buying on hopes of robust third quarter results by corporates to be declared next week, brokers said.

Market sentiment was also cheered up by firm global advices along with slight fall in crude oil prices.

Dow Jones Industrial Average firmed up by 129.91 points and the Nasdaq Composit Index closed by 38.42 points. In Asia, Nikkei rallied by 250.11 points, Hang Seng by 255.29 points and Taiwan by 24.67 points and Singapore ST by 14.77 points.

Among newly listed scrips, PVR Ltd and Ramsarup Inds. closed at Rs 295.00 and Rs 83 respectively as against the issue price of Rs 225 and Rs 60.

The notable gainers which lifted the index to record high were Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), InfosysTech, Satyam, ITC, Tata Motors, Stae Bank of India (SBI), NTPC, TCS, Wipro, Larsen and Turbo (L&T), HDFC, HDFC Bank, Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) Bajaj Auto, ACC and Grasim.