Boosted by a rally in the infotech stocks, on Monday the Bombay Stock Exchnage Sensitive Index (Sensex) reached its 60-week high of 4214.85 points. And this was achieved without any support from the recent Sensex-mover and the index heavyweight Hindustan Lever which actually closed lower at Rs 2406 against its Friday close of Rs 2409.

The Sensex closed with a net gain of 100.47 points or 2.44 per cent at 4210.36 against its Friday close of 4109.89 points. On the National Stock Exchnage, the S&P CNX Nifty also recorded a new 52-week high of 1203.35 points before closing at 1202.30 points. The Nifty gained 27.15points, or 2.31 per cent over its Friday close of 1175.15 points.

The latest FII figures released by the Securities and Exchange Board of India shows a net inflow of Rs 158 crore on Friday against a combined net outflow to the tune of Rs 39 crore on Wednesday and Thursday. A positive FII investment figure after two days of net outflow, combined with the pro-India stand by the G-8 in general and the US in particular has also sent in positive signals for the market players. Brokers now expect the market to witness more FII buying in the immediate future.

Technically, with the market yet to go into the overbought position, brokers are expecting the 4600-level to be breached in the next couple of days.

Monday's rally also brought the software scrips back into the limelight. The rally in the infotech stocks started during the morning session and almost all the frontline IT scrips, lead by Infosys, gained substantially in value against their respective Friday closes. While Infosys hit the circuit on both theexchanges, NIIT gained 6 per cent to Rs 1754. Satyam and Pentafour also closed with substantial gains agianst their respective Friday closes. And, according to one broker, the market is now re-rating MTNL as a software company and not just a telecom major. The scrip closed at Rs 202 against its Friday close of Rs 187.50.

According to brokers, the rally in the IT stocks, in the first place, was fuelled by a recent report from the US which predicts India to emerge as a software superpower in the next couple of years.

However, Prateek Agrawal, at SBI Capital Markets has a different tale to tell. According to Agrawal, "it is not that the market has suddenly gone bullish on software stocks. Neither is it that the software stocks have suddenly become attractive. Going by the fundamentals, infotech stocks were always attractive, but the recent euphoria about cyclicals had driven them out of favour for sometime. At their present levels, cyclicals are expensive and going by the fundamentals, the infotech stocksare attractive. Combined with this, the market has got the trigger to go bullish on software scrips that it was waiting for."

And with the current month coming to an end, the quarterly results are also round the corner. ``The first quarter results of IT companies are going to be very good with bottomline expected to grow by more than 50 per cent. The growth will continue even after the first quarter,'' said a fund manager. ``The IT stocks had been lacklustre and a rally was long overdue. With Q1 results for IT companies round the corner and FIIs fancy for Infosys ADR, buying is definitely going to stay in IT counters. What we will see is qualitative buying from investors with second-line IT stocks attrcating little interest,'' added the CIO of a mutual fund.

Telco, bouyed by respectable sales figures for May, and Tata Tea with its acqusition plans for Tetley in place, were also in the limelight. Crompton Greaves and Arvind Mills also hit the circuit breakers on BSE.

Satyam, with a total turnover of Rs169.94 crore from 14.33 shares, topped the turnover table on BSE. It was followed by Reliance Inds at Rs 140.46 crore, Pentafour Software at Rs 138.04 crore, ITC at Rs 129.18 crore and SBI at Rs 97.00 crore.