Sensex rises above 700 points

Mumbai, July 2 : The Bombay Stock Exchange's Sensex rose above 700 points to 13,664.62 level bringing a respite to the investors who had been shying away from investing due to gloomy market conditions.

The markets bounced back with benchmark Sensex notching up a massive over 700-point gain, the fifth biggest rise this year with an aggressive buying across-the-board.

Realty and bank stocks made a strong comeback and their sectoral indices closed higher by 12.22 per cent and 6.02 per cent, respectively. Metal, consumer goods and IT indices were the other top gainers in the range of 5-6 per cent.

The 50-share S and P CNX Nifty on the National Stock Exchange also scored an impressive gain of 196.60 points, or 5.05 per cent, to close at 4,093.35 level.

Global oil prices traded above US 141 dollar per barrel in Asian trade today.

A strong surge to sudden entry of Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs), which were believed to be heavy buyers in equity in the latter part of day, was responsible for today's rally according to experts.

Analysts termed today's upswing as a technical bounce.

ANI