BSE Sensex salutes premier bourse on 133rd anniversary

New Delhi/Mumbai, July 9 (UNI) Backed by strong buying momentum in the banking and Information Technology (IT) sector the 30-scrip Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Sensex today crossed the landmark 15,000 to close at 15,045.75 up 81.61 points coinciding with Dalal Street's 133rd foundation day.

Riding on strong economic fundamentals coupled with higher expectations from the corporate results, the Stock market, which has been witnessing an unprecedented boom, fuelled the BSE Sensex, said market watchers.

''The momentum will sustain in the market and the ongoing rally, confined to the IT stocks and is expected to spread in other sectors too, ruling out the fears of profit booking at higher level,'' Allianz Securities Ltd Executive Vice Chairman Navjeet S Sobti said.

BSE, the oldest exchange in Asia and the first exchange in the country to be granted permanent recognition under the Securities Contract Regulation Act, 1956, has had an interesting rise to prominence over the past 130 years.

The bourse, which faced a stiff competition in the 1990s during the time of inception of National Stock Exchange (NSE), converted itself into an online bourse, bringing transparency and a cost effective trading platform in its fold in the span of a decade.

Stalwarts like former BSE president late M G Damani virtually fought with various authorities to expand the BSE nationwide then, recall BSE old timers.

While the BSE is now synonymous with Dalal Street, it wasn't always so. In fact, the first venues of the earliest stock broker meetings in the 1850s were amidst rather natural environs - under banyan trees -in front of the Town Hall, where Horniman Circle is now situated.

A decade later, the brokers moved their venue to another set of foliage, this time under banyan trees at the junction of Meadows Street and Mahatma Gandhi Road. As the number of brokers increased, they had to shift from place to place, and wherever they went, through sheer habit, they overflowed in to the streets.

At last, in 1874, they found a permanent place and named it 'Dalal Street'.

UNI