Sensex soars to all-time high of 7228 this week

The sensex created history on the stock exchange, Mumbai, during the week under review as the BSE barometer breached all previous records and soared to an all-time high of 7228.57 points on heavy buying activity by foreign insitutional investors and closed at 7210.77.

Some dealers said most of the buying was by Japanese investors who were ready with large amount of funds to invest in the Indian market.

The BSE benchmark 30-share sensitive index opened the week on a subdued note at 7136.39 as against the previous close of 7148.62 and dipped further to a low of 7034.48.

Thereafter, it skyrocketted on heavy bouts of FII buying and, after touching a historic high of 7228.57, closed at an all-time high of 7210.77, showing a sharp rally of 62.15 points or 0.87% over the previous weekend close.

FIIs have already bought shares worth Rs 4,508 crore during June and Rs 19,251 crore in the current year, brokers said.

The main contributors to the sensex rally were ITC, L&T, SBI, Bajaj Auto, Dr Reddy, Bharti, HDFC Bank, Infosys Tech, ONGC, Satyam, TCS, Zee Tele and Tata Power.

Other firm spots were Rel Cap, ACC, ICICI Bank, HDFC, HLL and Bhel.

However, RIL, Grasim, Gujarat Ambuja Cement, Hero Honda, M&M, Maruti, Ranbaxy, Tata Motors, Tata Steel and Wipro met with selling and closed weak.

The outlook for the market continued to be encouraging and prices were likely to firm further and the sensex could surge up to the 7300 level, a broker said.

In the specified group, 101 counters registered gains while 96 finished with losses.

The broad-based BSE-100 index firmed up by 31.68 points to end the week at 3822.89 as against the previous weekend's close of 3791.21. The BSE-200 index and the Dollex-200 also ended higher at 926.40 points and 354.32 points from the last weekend close of 921.18 and 352.32 respectively.

Similarly, the BSE 500 index improved to 2941.22 points from the previous close of 2925.97 and the Dollex 30 improved to 1359.99 from 1348.27.

During the week, volume of business declined to Rs 15,583.12 crore from the previous close of Rs 15,857 crore.

On the NSE, S&P CNX Nifty rose by 17.55 points to 2211.90 from the last close of 2194.35.

Elsewhere, CNX Nifty Junior firmed up by 43.45 points to 4491.80 from 4448.35, S&P CNX Defty by 15.15 points to 1761.05 from 1745.90 and Bank Nifty by 79.80 points to 3678.90 from 3599.10.

At the NSE, total turnover rose to Rs 29,931.74 crore from the previous weekend level of Rs 29,604 crore.