97 stocks touch record high

The party continued on Dalal Street with the Sensex racing to greater heights today. With the index ending the day at 7277.31, up 66.34 points, the Bombay Stock Exchange now commands total investor wealth of Rs 18,60,504 crore.

In the past one month, the total market cap of BSE has grown over Rs 1 lakh crore. Several stocks peaked to life-time highs as domestic fund buying and positive fund flows from overseas investors kept the sentiment upbeat on the bourses.

About 97 stocks hit their all-time high today while 147 stocks were trading at their yearly high. For every two stocks that went up, only one slipped. The total number of advances were 1,706 compared with 803 declines.

Even as most index-heavyweights surged, four stocks touched their all-time highs. Tobacco major ITC, Bajaj Auto, HDFC and Bharti were ruling at their all-time highs. About 182 stocks hit the upped end of the circuit-filter during the day, leaving no scope for further buying.

As foreign fund flows continue to be good and domestic mutual funds still having investible surplus from the new fund collections, markets should be positive.

A good variety of primary issuances is also keeping investors interested in stocks. Even as Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan continues to increased the Fed Funds rate at a "measured pace", the flows to emerging market has been strong. "This is much more than what the Indian stocks markets could have bargained for" says an analyst.