The BSE Sensex or Bombay Stock Exchange Sensitive Index, or more popularly SENSEX surged by over 60 points to scale yet another high of 15,106.25 points in early trade today on sustained buying by funds in heavy-weight stocks.

Closed at 15,045.73 gaining over 81 points yesterday, The BSE-30 share Sensex gathered another 60.52 points to rise to the record intra-session high of 15,106.73 in the first five minutes of trading.

The stock market broadened and saw new peaks as projected and creating history by reaching the historical 15000 mark.

Now the market is trading in blue sky territory. Technically the tendency is still unbroken and there is no symbol of failing though the stock market is in a extended terrain. The other logical technical target in the days to come is 15379.

Today, the shares of Mumbai-based construction company Roman Tarmat listed (July 9) on the NSE and the BSE.

Shares of the company opened up at a premium of Rs 120.00, or 68.57%, at Rs 295.00, greater than the issue price of Rs 175.00, at the Bombay Stock Exchange. The overall volume of shares traded was 1,667,036.

The 30-share BSE Sensex continues to trade firm after opening positively at 15,018.71. It touched a high of 15,075.30. The stocks from IT and auto led the advances.

Asian markets boosted in the early trading sessions on signs of rising economic growth in Japan and South Korea and also because of the increase in the prices of oil.

The BSE Sensex made 313.61 points during last week. The Sensex touched the highest level of 15,000. The stock index took up 146 days to cover up the journey from 14,000 to 15,000. This was the longest period ever to breach 1,000 points. Strong inflows from FIIs, healthy economic development and remarkable corporate profits were considered as the chief drivers.

Stone India ascended 5.95% to Rs 188.90 on getting orders from Indian Railways for supplying 5 sets of static converters. This is a high value solid state product to be provided under partnership with SMA Technologies AG, Germany.

The scrip hit an intraday high of Rs 199.85 and an intraday low of Rs 180 during the day. On 29 August 2006, it touched a 52-week high of Rs 278.80 and a 52-week low of Rs 104.30 on 30 April 2007.

Mumbai: Tech stocks became more potent earlier than Infosys results on Wednesday. Fresh buying was seen in Infosys, Satyam, Wipro and Tata Consultancy and this is expected to carry on for a moment.

In early trading, Infosys was up 1.30 per cent to Rs 1,997.79, Satyam benefited 1.25 per cent to Rs 494 and TCS was up 0.80 per cent to Rs 1,168.15 on the NSE.

Development finance company IFCI climbed to a profit of Rs 2,468.6 million for the quarter ended Jun. 30, 2007 as compared to a loss of Rs 156.10 million in the same period of the last year (Jun. 30, 2006).

The Indian lender recorded profit of Rs 2.47 billion ($61 million) in the three months ended June 30. The earnings came up to Rs 3.5 billion in the three months to June 30 from Rs 2.52 billion.

The company’s operating income grew 38.86% to Rs 3,499.50 million for the quarter as against Rs 2,520.10 million for the corresponding quarter last year.

Birla Kennametal, Zenith Birla and Birla Power Solution were up 5% to 8% on reports that the Yash Birla Group has determined to reorganize group firms as part of a plan to modernize operations.

Birla Kennametal gained 4.99% to Rs 401.90, Zenith Birla up 8.26% to Rs 39.30, Birla power Solution gained 6.23% to Rs 34.10 and Dagger-Forst climbed 4.95% to Rs 51.90.

New Delhi: Rohan Bopanna got the singles title in assisting himself to a double crown in the $50,000 Shelbourne Irish Open Challenger tennis tournament at Dublin.

Bopanna sealed his maiden Challenger singles name with a 6-4, 6-3 verdict over qualifier Martin Pedersen of Denmark in the final.

Previously, Bopanna won the doubles title partnering Adam Feeney of Australia.

New Delhi: After a prolonged struggle with cancer, the former Indian prime minister and socialist legislator Chandra Shekhar (80) died of cancer in New Delhi hospital on Sunday. Shekhar headed a coalition government for a short period in 1990-91. He is survived by two sons.

Mr. Chandra Sekhar breathed his last at 8.45 a.m. at the Apollo Hospital, where he was admitted in May. He was suffering from multiple myloma, a cancer of plasma cells.

Phnom Penh: In order to strengthen economic and energy ties, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen left for India on Sunday.

India and Cambodia are expected to sign up various accords, including one in the area of oil and natural gas.

According to an official press release, during his visit to India, Hun Sen will meet with Indian President Abdul Kalam and also hold official discussions with his counterpart Manmohan Singh.

This July, as the Indian Stock Markets witness high voumes and higher Price to Earnings Ratio, our team finds the best picks for you. BSE sensex and NSE are hovering around their All time highs, Topnews checks with analysts to find the next levels for the Indian Markets.

Editior's Picks of the week.

As on Jun. 22, 2007, the credit paid out by scheduled commercial banks arose 24.6% (Rs 3,746.74 billion) on a year-on-year basis.

The Reserve Bank Of India (RBI) in its weekly statistical supplement of Jul. 6, 2007 reported that the disbursals as on this date were Rs 18,958.01 billion.

In the corresponding period of 2005-2006, the bank credit rose 31%. Therefore, the development in credit abridged for the week ended Jun. 22, 2007, entailing that RBI’s decision of lessening the monetary policy has produced worthy outcomes.

New Delhi: Tyre major JK Tyre is planning to invest Rs 1,100 crore over the next three years to expand its production capacity as it sees its revenues crossing Rs 5,000 crore marks by then.

JK Tyre and Industries Finance Director A. K. Kinra stated, “To meet the increased demand for radial and off the road (OTR) tyres, we will invest Rs 1,100 crore in expanding our production capacity by 2010.”

He added that the company would fund the growth plans through a mix of debt and internal accruals.

Mumbai: Worldwide head in Internet networking, Cisco Systems Inc plans to double up its Indian headcount by 2010.

As at the end of Q2 FY 07, Cisco India had around 2,800 workers including R&D sales and business support staff.

Ranajoy Punja Cisco India and SAARC Vice President (Business Development) stated, “We are a global company and Cisco is serious about India. The company has set up the Cisco Global Development Center in Bangalore, a software development center, which is the largest out of the US.”

Emap Publishing (Netherland) SV has purchased 40.1 % stake in Next Gen Publishing Ltd., which was a joint venture between the Forbes group and HDFC Ltd to publish special interest magazines and business directories.

Emap Publishing is subsidiary of UK-based Emap Plc that one of Europe's largest publishing companies with extensive interests in B2C, B2B, radio, television and digital media.

On Saturday, CEO of Next Gen, H S Billimoria said, “The entry of Emap as a partner throws open vast opportunities for Next Gen to become a leading media group in the country,"

On the back of rise in foreign currency and assets collections, Forex reserves soared up by USD 937 million to USD 213.486 billion on June 29 on week-on-week-basis.

According to the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) weekly statistical supplement released on July 6, 2007, foreign currency and assets reached USD 206.114 billion on the back of USD 936 million rise.

The IMF reserve position also came up by USD 1 million to USD 460 million during the same period.

On the other hand, gold reserves and the special drawing rights (SDRs) remained unaltered at USD 6,911 million and USD 1 million correspondingly.

Gold, rebounding on the bullion market on Saturday closed with a gain of Rs 55 at Rs 8,720 per ten gram, and Silver also did show surge on the market.

According to Marketmen, fresh buying by retailers and jewellery fabricators on the back of firming trend in overseas markets mainly helped pumping up the gold prices.

The Leader in the private sector lending – HDFC Bank has hiked the interest rates on its NRE deposits W.E.F. from July 1.

Now, the Deposits of 3 to 5 years maturity will earn an interest of 5.45 % as against the earlier 5.29 % while those of 2 to less than 2 years maturity will earn 5.43 % as compared to 5.31 %.

The deposits of maturity between 1 and 2 years will earn 5.42 % rate of interest as against the earlier 5.39 %.