Sensex makes a come-back as Sept contract expires

Fag-end buying on Thursday helped the Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sens*x recover its early losses and end the day nearly 62 points up as speculators rushed to cover their pending positions.

The 30-share Sens*x, which had tumbled 224.58 points during the day, bounced back in the last 30-minutes of trade to close higher by 61.93 points at 16,781.43 on the back of a sharp recovery in heavy-weight stocks like Reliance Industries, Housing Development Finance Corp and ICICI Bank.

Similarly, the wide-based National Stock Exchange's Nifty recovered by 16.60 points to end at 4,986.55. It briefly recovered the crucial 5,000 points level on late buying.

The late buying picked up as speculators indulged in covering

their pending positions on the last day of September month contract expiry in the derivatives segment.

Expectations of a robust corporate quarterly earnings further boosted the uptrend.

Also, a mixed Asian trend as Jpan's Nikkei index rose by 1.67 percent, China's Shanghai by 0.38 per cent, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng index fell by 2.52 percent and Singapore Straight Times by 0.69 percent partly influenced the trading sentiment.