Improvement in the political scenario and the government sending right kind of noises on the policy front have seen the market sentiment firming up coupled with no bad news from the Asian markets. The index opened marginally higher at 3054.31, drifted lower to 3041.09 and witnessed a high of 3105.24. According to NSE provisional figures, FIIs were net buyers at Rs 17.51 crore, while the financial Institutions were net sellers at Rs 41.73 lakh.Although volumes in the market were low, the Sensex gained with market participants being mildly positive on scattered speculative purchases. Brokers said the market sentiment improved as the foreign funds returned to the market andwere actively buying several blue chips. ``It being the last day of settlement on the NSE, the shares were a little subdued on profit-booking after four days of continuous rises and position-squaring, but the short-term trend is positive,'' said Ajai Doshi, a BSE broker.``Significantly, several hitherto stagnating low price shares, both in the specified and non-specified list, have been providing widespread gains because of political development at the centre and buying support from operators,'' said another BSE broker. ITC emerged in the limelight due to favourable order of the customs excise and gold appellate tribunal for the industry. The scrip finally closed at Rs 672.10. FIIs are reported to have bought ITC, Zee Telefilms, Castrol and SBI. Domestic institutions showed considerable interest in ITC, while mutual funds including UTI sold key index-based pivotals at peak levels and booked profit.

``An uptrend in Asian bourses aided bullish sentiments added to it the rupee's stability against the dollarkept feelings in the market calm. The market will go up from here by another 100-150 points before it is brought back by profit booking to current levels,'' said Chetan Shah of Asian Market Securities. Shah added that with the government planning to spending by the end of this month, areas like power, steel, transportation and other core sector areas would benefit. This would then be a good time to enter into these stocks.