Indices inch up on rotational buying

The market closed at a new record high, led by buying in IT & auto stocks, with third quarter earnings expectations and global cues boosting investor sentiments.

The Sensex gained 689 points or 1.43 per cent to close at 48,782 while the Nifty- 50 closed at 14,347.25, gaining 209.90 points, or 1.48 per cent.

Foreign portfolio investors were net buyers of equities worth Rs 6,029.83 crore while the domestic institutions were net sellers by Rs 2,372.54 crore.

"Global cues were positive as investors expected that a new Democraticcontrolled US government would lead to heavy spending and borrowing to support the country's economic recovery," said Siddhartha Khemka, head- retail research, Motilal Oswal Financial Services.

"The rally was led by the IT stocks, BSE IT index was up by 3.55 per cent, on high expectation from TCS result, which was to be announced by the company after the market hours,” he said.

TCS soared to a new life time high of Rs 3,127.55 on the BSE and finally closed at Rs 3,120.35. Other gainers included Infosys ( 3.95 per cent), Wipro ( 5.75 per cent), Tech Mahindra ( 5.64 per cent) and HCL Tech ( 3.13 per cent).

"At present, the rotational buying across the sectors is helping the index to inch higher," said Ajit Mishra, vice presidentresearch, Religare Broking.

BSE Auto Index also gained 3.37 per cent, led by gains for Maruti Suzuki ( 5.94 per cent), Eicher Motors ( 4.23 per cent), Mahindra & Mahindra ( 3.51 per cent) and Hero MotoCorp ( 3.31 per cent) and Bajaj Auto ( 2.75 per cent).