Infosys leads rally in new economy stocks

Mumbai, Jan 7: Led by Infosys Technologies, new ecomomy stocks attracted a smart rally, aiding the Sensex to close past the 3400-mark on The Stock Exchange, Mumbai (BSE) on fresh purchases by foreign institutional investors (FIIs), prompted by consistent upsurge in tech stocks on Wall Street.

FIIs seemed to have been encouraged in view of sustained upward march in the Nasdaq Composite Index, with the momentum spreading to the broader market on Wall Street, despite the worst monthly unemployment report in more than six years.

However, select key old economy stocks like HLL, SBI,Bhel, BSES, ACC and RPL suffered a sharp setback due to profit-booking by operators, substantially trimming the Sensex’s gains.

The BSE Benchmark 30-share index opened marginally up at 3377.13 and later gradually moved upwards to the intra-day high of 3438.86 before falling back to end the session at 3401.80, as against last Friday’s close of 3375.74, a net gain of 26.06 points, or 0.77 per cent. Market sources said operators and public investors too have shifted their attention to second-rung IT counters on hopes of making good profits following increased FIIs interest, even before making fund allocation for the current year. Zee Telefilms and Satyam Computers were in keen demand and were stuck in the 10-per cent upper circuit at close.

The volume of business declined to Rs 2,075.49 crore from Rs 2,315.19 crore last Friday. Satyam Computer was the top traded share with a turnover of Rs 362.76 crore followed by Infosys at Rs 231.26 crore, Digital Global (Rs 160.00 crore), Wipro (Rs 116.09 crore) and HFCL (Rs 110.02 crore).

— PTI