Sensex opens at a new high of 13,678.04 pts

Mumbai, Nov 17: The BSE Sensex touched a new peak of 13,678.04 at the opening session, on sustained heavy speculative buying support from Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs), brokers said.

Sensex opened with a huge upward gap of 172.15 points at 13,678.04 but it came off immediately after striking that high. It was index heavyweight Infosys Technologies that caused a spike in Sensex at open followed by its sharp fall from that record peak instantly.

At 1024 IST, Sensex was down by 18 points at 13,487.

The opening level of the Sensex of 13,678.04 was also its intra-day high. Its low was 13,485.88.

Mewnwhile, S&P CNX Nifty index of National Stock Exchange (BSE) resumed flat at 3877.00 points. Later it moved upto 3,891.85 points in intra-day session. But it came down at 3864.45 points during the mid-morning session. The current index eased by four to 3872.00 points from it previous day's close of 3876.85 points.

IT major Infosys opened with an upward gap of 9.4 per cent at Rs 2,401 compared to yesterday's closing price of Rs 2,194.25. It sharply came off the higher level and was hovering at Rs 2201, up 0.3 per cent for the day.

Dr Reddy's Lab lost five per cent to Rs 735.50 after its ADR plunged 5.1 per cent to USD 16.45 yesterday.

Refinery shares spurted as crude oil tumbled to one year low. HPCL jumped six per cent to Rs 320, BPCL rose 4.4 per cent to Rs 378 and Indian Oil Corporation gained 4.5 per cent to Rs 510.

Business prospects due to expectations that the Indo-US nuclear deal will get the approval lifted select shares. L&T rose 2.4 per cent to Rs 1385 and NTPC advanced 4.6 per cent to Rs 141. US Senate on Thursday approved the Indo-US nuclear deal, brokers added.

UNI