The fancied Sensex finished at an all-time high of 4846.36 at close after it breached the intra-day high of 4826.07 reached on Wednesday. With this, Sensex has risen by 216 points in the last one week and 1850 points in the last one year. The S&P CNX Nifty Index of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) gained 30.85 points to 1,402.50 on Thursday.

Ignoring the warning of market regulator SEBI, speculators pushed up Sensex to 4767.08 in the opening session itself. The index moved further upwards to close at an all-time high with a sizeable gain of 127.63 points or 2.70 per cent against yesterday's close of 4718.73. The BSE-100index spurted by 51.52 points to 2172.50 from previous close of 2120.98.

There was aggressive buying by FIIs in sectors like cement stocks. These shares remained in the limelight largely on reports of persistent rise in demand and prices in the past few months. After the Wednesday's setback that has brought down the net outstanding positions by about Rs 300 crore, operators had anticipated a further correction in the overbought market. "Tuesday's sell-off is being mostly seen as a profit-taking spree," said one dealer at a US brokerage.

Strong hopes of a domestic economic recovery drove up value-based and speculative purchases by retail and institutional participants, dealers said. "There is some foreign buying interest coming in," said a dealer at one foreign brokerage. "The cyclicals are doing well at the expense of software. At this rate, Sensex may touch 5,000 soon." The market turned bullish as several operators covered the short-sold positions after the rumours of a scam turned out to be unfounded.The directive by the market regulator to the exchanges to step up monitoring and surveillance and identify any manipulative trend in scrips also brought confidence among operators. However, market experts warned small investors to be careful while making fresh commitments in the ongoing bull run.

In the specified scrips, eleven scrips including Zee Telefilms were locked in the upper circuit filter after exhausting the eight per cent limit. About 124 of the 148 traded specified shares scored sharp to handsome gains while 22 were marginally down and two remained unchanged. Only three out of 30 index-based scrips showed moderate losses. Total volume of business was substantially down at Rs 2057.62 crore from Rs 2763.96 crore registered on Wednesday.ITC remained in the limelight and clocked the highest turnover of Rs 173.92 crore. ITC flared up by Rs 66 to Rs 1053 and Larsen by Rs 25.25 to Rs 407.25.

No payment crisis, claims BSE

MUMBAI: The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on Thursday refuted rumoursabout a payment crisis which was part of a series of rumours that led to the 216-point crash from the peak level on Wednesday. It said that all members have cleared their pay-in obligations and the exchange will declare pay-out as per schedule.

However, market experts feel that share prices and indices have entered a `danger zone'. ``A pre-election rally is unusual. Normally, markets rally after the elections. Some speculators seem to be creating an impression that the markets are bullish ahead of the elections. Many decisions like hike in petrol/ diesel prices, Kargil tax and so on are on the anvil after the elections,'' said a fund manager.