Sensex up 224 pts to reach new peak during week

Mumbai, Nov 4: The Sensex continued its upward climb during the week, settling at a new peak 13,130.79 on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) due to heavy speculative buying support, mainly from Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs), spurred by robust foreign fund inflows and impressive corporate earnings.

The Sensex rose 223.98 points or 1.73 per cent for the week ended November 3, 2006 to 13,130.79. Nifty gained 66 points or 1.76 per cent during the week to settle at 3,805.35.

The Sensex jumped by 117.45 points on Monday to settle at 13,024.26, as investors mopped up heavyweights and scrips that have reported strong Q2 results. Sensex declined 62.36 points to 12961.90 on Tuesday, on selling pressure throughout the day, brokers said.

The benchmark index advanced 71.14 points on Wednesday, to settle at 13,033.04 as investors bought blue chip shares. On Thursday, the Sensex finished 58 points higher to 13,091.12. It rose 39.67 points on Friday to settle at 13,130.79, all time high, as shares staged a rebound in later part of the day.

The total inflow of FIIs in the Indian equity market was Rs 1848.60 crore in the first four days of the week till November two.

On October 31, the Reserve Bank of India(RBI) in its mid-term review of annual policy kept Reverse Repo rate unchanged at 6 per cent, while the Repo rate was raised by 25 basis points to 7.25 per cent.

The bank rate was kept unchanged at 6 per cent while the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) was kept steady at 5 per cent. The central bank also raised 2006/07 economic growth forecast to ''around 8 per cent'' from a previous 7.5-8 per cent estimate. The central bank said inflation would be driven by demand conditions rather than supply-side effects. It said keeping inflation at 5.0-5.5 per cent range needed monitoring, appropriate policy response, brokers added.

PSU oil exploration major ONGC surged 12.06 per cent to Rs 884.50 for the week. The stock was boosted by news on Thursday that Norway's Norsk Hydro had offered it stake in two exploration blocks. Also there were reports that it plans joint ventures with Russian oil companies to acquire oil and gas assets.

The joint ventures would look for properties in Russia and other countries but not in India. ONGC once again regained its numero uno slot in terms of market cap displacing Reliance Industries from that slot.

Reliance Industries rose 5.41 per cent for the week to Rs 1289.

It had surged to a new high of Rs 1298.50 on Thursday. RIL kickstarted its retail initiative by opening its first retail store in Hyderabad. Also there were on reports that it will invest USD 5.2 billion to double the output from its D6 block in Krishna Godavari basin to 80 million standard cubic meters per day.

RIL plans to raise up to USD 2 billion overseas to fund its oil and gas exploration and production business.

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