Thursday, January 19 2006 11:00 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: The Bombay Stock Exchange Benchmark 30-share Index (Sensex) today (Jan 19,2006) bounced back and was quoted 99 points up in a strong pull-back rally during morning trade on the back of announcement of encouraging performance by some major corporates coupled with Foreign Institutional Investors (FII) positive activity.

Wipro, HDFC, REL and a few public sector banks have come out with better-than-expected third quarter results.

FII too reported net investments of Rs 320 crore on Jaunary 17 after a week-long negative acivity while domestic mutual funds remained sellers.

The Sensex opened firm at 9,271.63 against yesterday's (Jan 18,2006) close of 9,237.57 and later rallied sharply to 9,348.43 at 10.30 am, up by 99.14 points over last close.

The Sensex had adjusted to a downward correction by over400 points in the last six days and is expected to turn bullish as operators are likely to cover short positions ahead of expiry of derivatives contract on January 25, brokers said.

Blue chip counters like State Bank of India (SBI), HDFC, HDFC Bank, Reliance Energies Limited (REL), Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), Wipro, Infosys Tech, ICICI Bank, REL, Tata Motors, Grasim, Bajaj Auto, ACC, Hero Honda and TCS Ltd were quoted remarkably higher on fresh buying support.

However, Bharti Tele-Venture, Ranbaxy and L&T showed moderate falls on profit booking.