Saturday, August 26 2006 12:05 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: Led by a sharp rise in banking major, State Bank of India (SBI), the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Sensex improves further by another 40 points to close at 11,572.20, despite heavy pull-out by foreign funds from derivatives segment.

The market erases more than half of the early gains due to weekend profit-selling in a volatile movement at the fag end as Asian markets ends mixed after initial smart rally.

SBI attracts heavy buying after the Union Cabinet Thursday(24 Aug,2006) approves amendments to the SBI Act of 1995, which will allow the bank to increase its paid-up capital and also proposes to reduce the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) stake to 51 per cent by offering additional equity to the public to raise funds, brokers say.

It also proposes to reduce the face value of shares, resulting operators and retailers to go on buying spree.

Resuming on a strong note at 11,589.35 as against Thursday's (24 Aug, 2006) close of 11,531.95, the BSE-30 share sensitive index remains in the positive terrain throughout the day to touch a high of 11,635.25, before concluding at 11,572.20, a net rise of 40.25 points or 0.35 per cent.

On the National Stock Exchange (NSE), the S&P CNX Nifty also spurted by 15.55 points or 0.46 per cent to 3,385.95 from previous close of 3,370.40.

Meanwhile, Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) continues their selling in derivatives and reportedly pressed sales worth Rs 752.33 crore Thursday(24Aug,2006) taking a total to Rs 1979.37 crore since August 17 while they also are net sellers in cash for the last couple of days.