Sensex gains 69 pts, closes firm at 14,110.46 pts

Mumbai, Jan 24; The Sensex recovered smartly to gain modestly by 69.22 points and closed firm at 14,110.46 on the Bombay Stock Exchange today on fresh speculative demand from Foreign Institutional Investors (FII's) and mutual funds.

Short covering in derivatives ahead of expiry of January 2007 derivatives contracts on Thursday and firm global markets triggered a recovery on the bourses after Tuesday's sharp fall.

Bank shares edged higher along with Tata Steel. Tata Motors and Cipla declined following the announcement of Q3 results after trading hours on Tuesday.

The Sensex, which had almost evened out for the day in mid-afternoon trade from strong early trade, rose once again in latter part of the trading session.

Sensex had opened 14,069.61, just 28 points more from last closing day. Earlier, the barometer index had risen as much as 115 points to a high of 14,156.46 in early trade.

The market breadth turned negative in the latter part of the trading session in contrast to a strong breadth earlier during the day. 1345 shares declined on BSE as compared to 1287 shares that rose. 49 shares were unchanged. BSE clocked a turnover of Rs 4447 crore.

The BSE METAL and CG indices shot up sharply by 331.25 points and 141.95 points respectively. They closed 9228.90 for METAL index and for CG index at 9468.94 points, followed by PSU index by 82.14 and touched 6231.89 points, BANKEX index by 69.21 points and quoted at 7383.82 points, OIL&GAS index by 63.93 points and touched 6639.22 points and SML CAP index by 42.61 points and closed at 7543.89 points.

Meanwhile, the S&P CNX Nifty index of NSE closed firm at 4089.90 with a modest gain of 23.80 points from its last close of 4066.10 points before it resumed flat at 4066.60 points. The Nifty index recorded a day's high at 4098.25 points and a low at 4065.75 points.

European markets edged up in early trade. Key benchmark indices in London, Germany and France were up between 0.1 - 0.7 per cent.

Asian markets were firm. Key benchmark indices in Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan were up between 0.25 - 1.4 per cent.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 56.64 points, or 0.45 per cent, to end at 12,533.80. The Standard&Poor's 500 Index added 5.04 points, or 0.35 per cent to finish at 1,427.99.

The Nasdaq Composite Index inched up just 0.34 of a point, or 0.01 per cent, to 2,431.41.

Nymex crude was down 35 cents to USD 54.69 a barrel. It rose nearly USD 2.50 on Tuesday, when the United States announced plans to build up emergency crude reserves, and as colder weather pushed up demand in the world's top consumer, brokers said.

UNI