Cyclicals continue upward march

MUMBAI, DEC. 11. Cyclicals continued their upward march lifting the Sensex past 4200-mark to post handsome gains at close on the Bombay Stock Exchange today on sustained buying support from speculators as well as fresh investments by foreign institutional investors.

However, a few old economy stocks that carry considerable weightage in the BSE benchmark suffered a moderate setback due to profit booking by domestic institutions which reportedly were sellers in ACC, Tisco, HLL, Bajaj Auto and Castrol.

The Sensex has closed past 4200-level for the first time after a lapse of over two and half months or 56 sessions. It had closed at 4257.20 on September 21.

The BSE sensitive index opened firm at 4198.72 and later fluctuated in a limited range of 4233.26 and 4178.51 before ending at 4228.29 against last Friday's close of 4156.08, showing a net rise of 72.21 points or 1.74 per cent.

The BSE-100 index also strengthened by 41.53 points to 2226.64 from the previous close of 2185.11.

Riding piggyback on anticipation of excellent earnings by software sector in the third quarter and of an announcement of fund allocation by FIIs during the current month, bulls made a consistent bid to take control of the market focusing their attention to Indian stocks. The Nasdaq, and increased FII activity were additional driving force. The futures rate of Nasdaq composite index that spurted by about 165 points last weekend, was ruling firm during the session and in turn, indicated fresh rally in technology stocks on wall street.

FIIs too made net purchases in IT stocks such as Silverline, Satyam Computers, DSQ Software and Pentamedia Graphics.

South East Asian markets like Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo also exhibited strong trend aiding the sentiment.

Among the specified group, 113 counters including 23 index based shares registered sharp to moderate gains while 26 others recorded marginal losses.

- PTI

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