Sensex crosses 10,500 mark for first time

Mumbai, Mar 1: The BSE Sensex crossed the 10,500 mark for the first time this afternoon with a gain of 130 points, following the impact of budget proposals announced for the fiscal 2006-07.

The 30-share Sensitive Index (Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) touched a high of 10,510.45, with a gain 140 points around 1350 hrs.

The Sensex has added more than 200 points after the Budget presentation yesterday afternoon, taking into account the rise by 88 points yesterday to 10,370 points.

The National Stock Exchange (NSE) S&P CNX Nifty index also crossed the 3,100 mark this afternoon with a gain of 28 points, trading at 3,103 points at 1338 hrs.

The cement stocks were up with gains in both the bluechips and the midcap companies with ACC, Grasim Industries and Gujarat Ambuja moving up.

The tea stocks were up buoyed up by a special package of Rs 100 crore for the tea industry and midcap tea scrips like Harrison Malayalam and Macleod Rusel were up. Tata Tea was, however, down by a small margin.

FMCG scrips were also up with Hindustan Lever and ITC moving up.

The banking scrips were down with SBI, HDFC and ICICI Bank trading lower.

Reliance Natural Resources Limited (RNRL) made its debut on the stock markets today.

RNRL's Rs five share opened at Rs 17.50 on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and the National Stock Exchange (NSE), and touched a high of Rs 30 in the trading so far.

RNRL saw huge volumes with more than three crore shares changing hands on the NSE.

It was trading at Rs 18.65 around 1320 hrs.

UNI