In a choppy trade, the BSE benchmark sensex surrendered itsinitial gains, still ending further higher by merely 37 points on the back ofbuying in Metal, Capital Goods and Healthcare sectors despite mild selling inIT, Teck and FMCG counters.
The BSE benchmark Sensex resumed higher at 16,903.96 andshot up further to 16,962.49 on firm global trends triggered by persistentbuying on upbeat US housing data overnight and on prospects of more monetaryeasing by the Federal Reserve.
However, it declined afterwards to 16,840.10 on profit-booking in select counters before ending at 16,896.63, still showing a gain of36.83 or 0.22 per cent.
The NSE 50-share Nifty also moved up by 16.70 points or 0.33per cent to 5,120.55.
Asian stocks rose following overnight rally in US stockmarkets. Key benchmark indices in Singapore, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea andHong Kong ended up by 0.47 pct to 1.11 pct while China's Shanghai Compositeshed 0.34 per cent.
European stocks were trading narrowly mixed in their earlytrade as indices in UK and Germany inched up by 0.14 pct and 0.12 pctrespectively while France eased by 0.35 pct.
US stocks advanced yesterday on the hopes that the FederalReserve will agree to extend stimulus measures to support growth in world'slargest economy. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 95.51 pts or 0.75 pctand the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 34.43 pts or 1.19 pct.
Mr. Kishor P. Ostwal, CMD, CNI Research Ltd.said,"Market closed in Green on global cues. It seems some FII activity ishappening with bias upside. Nifty closed today above 5120 which is a good sign.It has still not breached the resistance of 5155. It should happen in couple ofdays which will then take nifty past 5280. Cement shares were in action due tounexpectedly very low penalty of just Rs 3500 crs by CCI and huge shortcovering. Cement stock will rise further. Some improvement is seen in B gr sharesas many HNI are now re-entering markets although they are bit cautious."
Out of the 30-share sensex family, 18 finished with gainswhile 12 others ended with losses.
Major gainers were Sterlite Ind (3.07 pct), Dr Reddy (2.96pct), Tata Motors (2.83 pct), Jindal Steel (2.62 pct), ONGC (1.91 pct), BHEL(1.68 pct), Tata Power (1.59 pct), Tata Steel (1.58 pct), Sun pharma (1.29pct), Hero Motocorp (1.27 pct) and HUL (1.27 pct).
However, TCS dropped by 1.71 pct followed by Coal India 1.53pct, Bharti Airtel 1.29 pct, ITC 1.14 pct and Maruti Suzuki 1.14 pct.
Among the sectoral indices, the BSE-Metal rose by 1.28 pctfollowed by the BSE-Capital Goods 1.17 pct, the BSE-Health care 1.16 pct andthe BSE-Power 0.99 pct.
The market breadth continued to remain positive as 1,617stocks closed with gains while 1,090 ended with losses. The total turnovermoved up to Rs 1,903.98 from Rs 1,865.85 crore yesterday.