The Sensex crossed the previous high (closing) of 4710 on Monday to end at 4716.81 points, thus gaining 76.81 points over Friday's close. The index touched an intra-day high of 4757 before profit booking emerged at higher levels. The Nifty also moved up by 25 points to close at 1349.60 points with 105 scrips hitting the price band. The top five losers includes three Tata companies of Tisco, Telco and Tatachem.

Barring a few information technology scrips, all other IT shares hit the upper end of the circuit filter during the day with high volumes. The spurt in software scrips was aided by the rise in HDFC and ZeeTelefilms which also exhausted the 8 per cent limit on the bourses. While HLL remained firm and moved up by Rs 54 to end at 2448, ITC emerged from the woods to close higher at Rs 1057.

``Its a standard shift from one sector to another that will happen in a bull-market as investors evaluate performance,'' said Sanjeev Sanghvi, head of research, HSBC Securities.

``The demand for IT stocks was evident with IT stocks again hitting the circuit the monent they came out of it. Except Pentafour and Aptech, all major IT stocks hit the roof,'' said a market participant. ``There was hardly any movement in economy-related counters with some late buying emerging in State Bank of India,'' he added.

Marketmen point out that results from cyclicals have not been very encouraging and its advantage IT, pharma and FMCG stocks. ``Profit-booking has emerged in cyclicals and they are likely to take a backseat for the time-being,'' said Rajiv Sampat at Parag Parikh Financial Services. ``While the spurt in IT stocks ispartially attributed to the rise in Infosys ADR, the first quarter results of majority of IT firms has not been disappointing, as was made out to be. That has also led to the shift,'' added an analyst.

However, a section of the market does not rule out profit-booking to emerge even in software counters which look expensive at current valuations. ``While cyclicals are reacting, I expect some profit-booking to emerge in software counters as well,'' said Ambareesh Baliga at Kotak Securities.

So, what will keep the markets in forward gear in the near futture. ``The market is likely to move in a band of 300 points in the near-term,'' said Dileep Medagavdkar at Prudential ICICI. Added Chirag Sanghvi at Asit C Mehta Invest intermdiaries, ``The market is likely to go its all-time high of 4810 but is expected to see a correction of around 200 points from that level for fresh buying to emerge.''