Sensex resumes high at 19,552.53 pts, up by 150 pts

Mumbai, Nov 7: The BSE sensitive index today opened firm at 19,552.53 points with a massive gain around 152 points from its last close of 19,400.67 points on fresh speculative demand from FIIs and mutual fund operators.

Borkers said, '' The market opened on a firm note led by gains in index heavy weights Reliance Industries and ICICI Bank. It soon came sharply off higher level. Index heavyweight Infosys Technologies declined sharply. Oil&Gas stocks were in demand. Power and capital goods stocks were also in green.

The market has turned cautious off late due to recent FII sales/slowdown in FII inflow. There has been slowdown in FII inflow and also a bout of FII outflow since the past few days. As per provisional data, FIIs bought shares worth just Rs 7.62 crore on November 6,2007.

Later, the 30-share BSE Sensex was up by 50.48 points, or, 0.31 per cent (pc) at 19561.55. It touched a high of 19,678.50 in early trade, which was a gain of 277.83 points for the day.

The broader S&P CNX Nifty index of NSE was up by 15.75 points, or, 0.27 pc at 5802.25, before it opened low at 5782.40 points from it last close of 5786.50.The Nifty index recorded a high at 5861.35 and a low at 5744.30 points in intra day trade.

The BSE Mid-Cap index was up 89.15 points, at 8,104.45, while the BSE Small-Cap index was up 97.99 points, at 9,901.02.

TCS, India's largest software exporter by sales, was down by 1 pc to Rs 994.50. Infosys Techonogies, India's second largest software exporter was down by 3.82 pc to Rs 1780 and Wipro eased by 1.10 pc to Rs 482, edged lower.

IT stocks slumped due to firm rupee. Strong rupee hits software companies as they earn more than 60 pc of their revenue from US markets.

The Asian markets were trading firm. Hong Kong's Hang Seng was up by 2.05 pc at Rs 30,040.47. Singapore's Straits Times gained by 0.15 pc at 3,688.63. South Korea's Seoul Composite rose by 1.01 pc at 2,074.99. Taiwan's Taiwan Weighted was up by 0.93 pc at 9,378.79.

However,Japan's Nikkei 225 was down by 0.22 pc at 16,214.54.

On Wall Street, energy stocks such as Exxon Mobil gained ground on yesterday, helping send the blue chip Dow up by 0.9 pc. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 1.1 pc, brokers added.

UNI