MUMBAI, AUGUST 30: The Indian stock markets are all set to create history. The bellwether Sensex of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on Monday touched a new all-time high at 4965.79 on Monday - just 35 points away from the 5000-mark - but came down due to profit-taking by domestic financial institutions to close at another all-time high.Sensex opened at a record high of 4953.73 points, touched an intra-day high of 4965.79 and a low of 4900.87 and ended at 4905.89, showing a net gain of 35.23 points over the last close of 4870.66 points. ``Sensex will touch the 5000-mark either on Tuesday or Wednesday,'' said a broker.Marketmen said as it was the opening day of the current trading cycle, there was heavy buying by foreign institutional investors (FIIs) and domestic operators in index-based scrips. But profit-taking by financial institutions at higher levels led the Sensex to close at lower levels. ``Sensex started the day beyond the important 4900-mark and operators are eager to take the index past the magical 5000-mark,'' said a fund manager.Stocks witnessed an across-the-board rise with TELCO ending at Rs 363, Ranbaxy at Rs 1125, TISCO at Rs 172, HLL at Rs 2700, Colgate-Palmolive at Rs 295, Infosys Technologies at Rs 5,500, Satyam Computers at Rs 890, ITC at Rs 1030, L&T at Rs 409 and Reliance at Rs 189.The market buoyancy is spurred by hopes of a stable government after the forthcoming elections. Signs of foreign fund buying and a wave of retail participation is also propping up the market, dealers said, adding that profit-taking is likely to emerge after the 5,000 mark is touched."The market looks basically very strong now, investors are all hopeful it will touch the 5,000 mark soon," said a dealer with a foreign brokerage. "There are positive economic indicators and even foreign funds who had slowed down their buying earlier in the month, have started buying," he said. Dealers said a lot of retail interest is being seen in the market in anticipation of a bull run above the 5,000 mark.Although share prices started on a bullish note on Monday, prices failed to maintain their higher levels and later lost part of early gains as operators pressed sales in line with squaring up business on the National Stock Exchange (NSE). Though the Sensex had broken all its previous resistance levels and closed above its all-time high of last weekend indicating long term bullishness for the benchmark, operators seemed concerned over increasing net outstandings which had risen to Rs 2037 crore at the turn of account.Meanwhile, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has said it has asked all stock exchanges in the country to be on the alert as share prices continued to climb dizzy heights across bourses. ``We are constantly monitoring the situation and have advised all stock exchanges to be on the alert to avoid any crisis,'' Sebi Chairman D R Mehta said.``The markets are safe and we are fully geared up to face any crisis,'' he said when asked whether the stock markets were faced with an impending crisis at these record index levels. Stating that all major stock exchanges have put in place `Stock Watch systems' to monitor positions of brokers on a real-time basis, Mehta said Sebi has also asked the exchanges to impose additional margins, if the situation warrants.Currently, exchanges impose additional volatility margins and mark-to-market margins, whereby exchanges fixes margins on actively fluctuating scrips every day. Scrips that fluctuate eight per cent from the previous days's closing rate invite volatility margins of 20 per cent and trading is not allowed at prices beyond the eight per cent limit upwards or downwards on a trading session.
