Thursday, January 5 2006 17:28 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: In highly volatile trading, the Sensex today (Jan 05, 2006) touched a new peak of 9,679.72, but later turned sharply weak and closed 30.34 points lower at 9,617.74 on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on emergence of profit-selling at higher level.

Operators and retail investors were adopting a cautious approach ahead of the third quarter results by corporates like RIL and Infosys next week, brokers said.

The BSE bench-mark 30-shares sensitive index (Sensex) opened slightly lower at 9,638.27 as against yesterday's close of 9,648.08 and after moving erratically between 9,679.72 and 9,571.31, closed at 9,617.74, revealing a moderate loss of 30.34 points or 0.31 per cent over the previous close.

Prices of several blue chip companies had risen steeply in the last couple of days and the Sensex zoomed by more than 250 points since Tuesday.

Foreign Institutional Investors, however, continued their support and made a net investment of Rs 466.60 crores on January three.

"The market was in a overbought position and operators took the opportunity to book profit at this time and play safe ahead of the third quarter results by coporates to be announced next week," a dealer said.

Fall in index-heavyweights such as RIL, Satyam, ICICI Bank, Tata Motors, TCS, Wipro, ONGC, L&T and Tata Steel was reflected in the Sensex.

However, smart rise in SBI, Bajaj Auto, Hero Honda, MUL, Grasim, HDFC Bank and BHEL minimised the index damage.