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Software shares flare up; Sensex spurts 123 points to 4833

The Sensex of the Bombay Stock Exchange shot up by about 123 points to close at 4832.56, as the software shares staged a remarkable rally on heavy buying spree from foreign funds coupled with short-covering by local operators today.

The software shares which remained steady for a quite a long period, suddenly turned active today at both the BSE and the National Stock Exchange, dealers said.

Infosys Technologies, Satyam Computers, Pentafour Software and Digital Equipment posted handsome gains along with others like Glaxo Pfizer, MRF Mico, Tisco, BPCL and Apollo Tyres, dealers said.

Mirroring the bullish phase, the 30-share Sensitive Index (Sensex) opened at 4728.19 points, marginally higher from the last Friday' close of 4709.93 points, gradually advanced to touch the day's high of 4839.16 points, before closing at 4832.56 points, showing a net gain of 122.63 points or 2.60 per cent as against the previous close.

The broad-based BSE 100 (National Index also gained smartly by 58.34 points to 2160.58 points from the previous close of 2102.24 points.

S Ramkrishna, a retail broking dealer at the Motilal Oswal Securities, said that the current rally is sustainable and it also indicates that the technical correction is over.

The S&P CNX Nifty Index at the NSE advanced by 15.25 points or 1.10 per cent to 1390.20 points from the previous close of 1374.95 points.

Trading at the BSE began late by nearly half-an-hour today, the first day of current weekly settlement, due to some technical problem and ended at 1600 hours.

Leading BSE brokers said that the FIIs reportedly sold shares worth Rs 1.53 billion last week; however, they were very much active today and made considerable investments in software shares.

Apart from the software and select pharma, the cement shares too reported good buying support during the course of trading, dealers said.

The BSE-200 and Dollex indices rose by 13.21 and 5.18 points to 496.24 and 190.01 points from the previous close of 483.03 and 184.83 points respectively.

The BSE-500 index at the BSE advanced smartly by 39.57 points to 1467.26 points as against the previous close of 1427.69 points.

UNI

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