Thursday, March 30 2006 17:34 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: Buoyed by sound market fundamentals and faster economic growth, the Bombay Stock Exchange sensex raced forward for the fifth successive day today (Mar 30, 2006) and scored a century to reach one more peak of 11,307.04 points on the last session of derivatives March contract.

Consistent heavy purchases by institutional investors and expectations of robust corporate earnings for fourth quarter, to be announced in the second week of April, spurred fresh buying support from market players.

Beginning on a strong footing at 11,241.78, the 30-share sensex crossed the 11,300-mark to scale an all-time intra-trade peak of 11,338.66 before ending the day at a new closing peak of 11,307.04 against yesterday's close of 11,183.48, a net rise of 123.56 points or 1.1 per cent.

The sensex has risen by 466.45 points or 4.31 per cent in the last five trading sessions.

The fast growing Indian economy, placed fourth in global GDP growth list after the US, China and Japan, was the prime impetus to the bourses.

Correction for its sound health

Disregarding a necessary correction for its sound health, the market even resisted pressure induced by speculations of IT raids on stock brokers and climbed to dizzy heights even as it derived strength from unabated fund flows coupled with hectic shortcovering in the futures.

The market needs a downward correction but it is driven higher by unending flow of money in equity, brokers said.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) and local mutual funds were believed to be heavy buyers in blue chip counters.

FIIs reported inflows of Rs 922 crore in the first two days of week while mutual funds pumped in Rs 831.62 crore in the same period.

Key stocks like HDFC, HDFC Bank, ONGC, Bharti Tele, HLL, ITC, Grasim, Hero Honda, L&T, Ranbaxy, TCS Ltd and Wipro recorded sharp gains on heavy investment support.