Sensex closes firm at 14,217.75 pts, up by 86 pts

Mumbai, Jan 18 (UNI) The Sensex today shot up by 86.41 points on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), closing at 14,217.75 on sustained heavy speculative buying support from Foreign Institutional Investors (FII's) and mutual funds.

The market edged higher in what turned out to be a volatile trading towards the latter part of the trading session.

A major bout of profit taking gripped the market soon after the Sensex struck an all time high of 14,325.92 in intra day. the Sensex tumbled to 14,140.35 at mid session, which was a gain of just 9.01 points for the day. At the day's high of 14,325.92, the Sensex had spurted 194.58 points for the day over Wednesday's close of 14,131.34.

The BSE OIL&GAS and PSU indices also shot up by 106.49 points and 79.25 points respectively. They closed at 6664.13 for OIL&GAS index and for PSU index at 6294.41 points, followed by CG index by 57.50 points and quoted at 9496.16 points, IT index by 32.71 points and touched 5408.47 points. FMCG index was up by 21.70 points and quoted at 1934.65 points, SML CAP index by 20.52 points and touched 7598.45 points and TECK index was up by 16.24 points and closed at 3738.27 points.

But the BSE CD and METAL indices crashed by 72.71 points and 65.47 points respectively. They closed at 3828.42 points for CD index and for METAL index at 9069.53 points, followed by BANKEX index by 34.88 points and touched 7464.89 points and MID CAP index by 15.14 points and closed at 6103.57 points.

Meanwhile, the S&P CNC Nifty index of NSE closed firm at 4109.05 points with a modest gain of around 33 points from its close of 4076.45 points before it resumed flat at 4075.20 points. The index recorded a high at 4140.25 points and a low at 4075.20 points during the session.

Earlier, the market firmed up during the course of the day continuously till the Sensex hit a record high of 14,325.92 at noon session.

Late profit taking was seen in ICICI Bank, Tata Steel, Reliance Communications, and Grasim but Ranbaxy slipped after post results surge.

Though the market breadth was positive, it weakened in the latter part of trading from strong breadth in afternoon trade. 1386 shares rose on BSE as compared to 1293 shares that declined. 57 shares were unchanged. BSE clocked a turnover of Rs 5053 crore, higher than Wednesday's Rs 4746 crore.

European markets opened positive. Key benchmark indices in London, Germany and France were up between 0.4 - 0.6 per cent. Asian markets were in the green. Key benchmark indices in Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan were up between 0.2 - 1 per cent. Bank of Japan today kept interest rates unchanged at 0.25 per cent as expected.

Nymex crude was hovering slightly higher at about USD 52.50 a barrel on Thursday. It had rebounded on Wednesday from a 20-month low, brokers said.

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