Fag-end buying pushes mkts up

Mumbai: Benchmark equity indices Sensex and Nifty ticked higher for the ninth straight session on Thursday, buoyed by fag-end buying in banking, financial and realty stocks amid encouraging domestic retail inflation data. Weak trends in IT counters and fall in the overnight US equity markets triggered by fresh concerns over recession, however, put a check on market's uptrend.

In a largely subdued session, the 30-share BSE Sensex went up marginally by 38.23 points or 0.06 per cent to settle at 60,431.

During the day, it hit a high of 60,486.91 and a low of 60,081.43. The broader NSE Nifty climbed 15.60 points or 0.09 per cent to finish at 17,828.

"After the flat start, pressure in the IT majors pushed the Nifty lower, however, buying in select heavyweights especially from the banking pack trimmed all the losses and helped index to close flat," said Ajit Mishra, V-P (technical research), Religare Broking Ltd.

In the broader market, the BSE smallcap gauge climbed 0.33 per cent and midcap index advanced 0.16 per cent. Bankex rallied 1.38 per cent, realty jumped 1.17 per cent, financial services climbed 0.97 per cent and auto went up by 0.35 per cent. However, IT fell by 2.05 per cent, teck (1.94 per cent), capital goods (0.57 per cent), oil & gas (0.55 per cent), energy (0.32 per cent) and telecommunication (0.23 per cent). In nine trading days, the BSE benchmark has jumped 2,817.28 points or 4.88 per cent.