Sensex firms up at 10,110.97 on FII inflows

STOCK REPORT

Driven by sustained foreign institutional investors (FII) inflows, the stock market once again turned strong after a brief pause even as the Sensex on Friday ended 66 points up at a new closing peak of 10,110.97 in volatile trade and indicated bullish sentiment for the near term.

The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) benchmark 30-share index (Sensex) also scaled an all-time intra-trade high of 10,122.25 while moving in a relatively narrow range of 65 points.

The Sensex ended at 10,110.97 against Wednesday's close of 10,044.82, a net rise of 66.15 points or 0.66 per cent.

FIIs were the principal driving force behind the market with a hefty net investments of about Rs 2,300 crore in the first four days of the month.

The sentiment remained bullish with increased confidence among investors despite reports that the market is currently trading at a price-to-earning multiple (p/e) of 16.65 times to its trailing twelve-month (TTM) earnings ended December 2005.

Domestic mutual funds too are expected to make aggressive purchases in the near future as, brokers said, they are flush with funds raised through various unit schemes.

Meanwhile, inflation fell to 4.30 per cent for the week ended January 28 mainly owing to cheaper manufactured items. HLL, L&T, Grasim, Dr Reddy's lab, Cipla, HDFC, ITC, Hero Honda, Ranbaxy and Satyam Computers were among the sharp gainers. 

However, Infosys Technologies, Tata Steel, ICICI Bank and ACC suffered a sharp setback due to profit booking. The broad-based BSE-100 index firmed up by 39.02 points to 5,322.71 from previous close of 5,283.69.

The BSE-200 index and the Dollex 200 were quoted sharply up at 1,275.33 and 480.28 at close compared with Wednesday's close of 1,265.30 and 476.61 respectively.

The BSE-500 index rose by 33.21 points to 4,076.12 from last close of 4,042.91 and the dollex-30 ended higher at 1,877.65 from 1,865.79.

The volume of business was relatively high at Rs 3,854.33 crore compared with Rs 3,699.53 crore on wednesday.

Titan ind clocked the highest turnover of Rs 197.50 crore followed by infosys tech (Rs 125.87 crore), RIL (Rs 95.36 crore), Cipla (Rs 83.13 crore) and REL Capital (Rs 73.59 crore).