Sensex opens high at 13,969.45 pts, up 27 points

Mumbai, Jan 3: The Sensitive Index of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) today opened high at 13,969.45 points, with a modest gain of around 27 points from it's last close of 13,942.24 points, fuelled by fresh speculative demand from Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) and local investors, brokers said.

The market opened on a firm note on the back of gains registered in the auto, cement and IT shares.

Later, the Sensex was up by 77 points at 14,019.52. Meanwhile, the barometer index eased at 13,917.22 points during the mid-morning session.

Currently, the index has declined by around 22 points and is quoted at 13,919.51 points.

On the other hand, the S&P CNX Nifty index of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) resumed flat at 3007.70 points. It recorded a high and a low at 4,026.75 points and 3986.65 points respectively, during the mid-session.

The current index is quoted low at 3986.85 points with a modest loss of 21 points from it's last close of 4,007.40 points.

Auto shares today rose for the second day in a row on the back of strong sales for the month gone by. Tata Motors rose 2.6 per cent to Rs 954.45, while Bajaj Auto rose by 2.3 per cent to Rs 2804, extending their yesterday's gains, due to encouraging sales in the month of December last year. The company had declared on Monday that their sales last month had rose by 24 per cent.

Small cars major, Maruti Udyog rose by 1.2 per cent to Rs 981.50.

They had declared on Monday, that they have sold 56,985 vehicles last month, a 23.7 per cent rise from last year.

IT shares were in demand fuelled by expectations of strong Q3 results.

Satyam Computer gained 1.5 per cent to Rs 516, Infosys rose 0.9 per cent to Rs 2294, TCS rose 0.7 per cent to Rs 1257, and Wipro gained 0.4 per cent to Rs 614.

Infosys will kickstart the earnings reporting season on January 11.

Gujarat Ambuja Cements rose 1.5 per cent to Rs 146 after the company declared yesterday that cement shipments for the year ending December 2006 rose by 11.3 percent to 16.33 million tonnes, from 14.67 million a year ago. Production too increased by 11.7 percent to 16.34 million tonnes, they said in a statement.

Meanwhile, ACC rose 1 by per cent to Rs 1103.

Index heavyweight, Reliance Industries rose by 0.4 per cent to Rs 1,287.

Asian markets are mostly in the green today. Key benchmark indices in Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan were up by between 0.24 per cent to 1.3 per cent.

US markets were closed yesterday, brokers added.

UNI