Mumbai: The Sensex snapped three-day losing string and recovered smartly by 46 points in a brief special trading session on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) today (Nov 15) on fairly heavy buying prompted by encouraging mid-year economic review.

The mid-year economic review has projected a gross domestic product (GDP) growth of well over seven per cent on the back of expectations of a growth rate of eight per cent in agriculture and allied sectors and a six per cent growth in agriculture.

The BSE benchmark 30-share index opened on an optimistic note at 4,873.91 and gradually moved upwards to the intra-day high at 4,925.31 before ending at 4,911.76 as against yesterday's close of 4,865.83, netting a rise of 45.93 points or 0.94 per cent.

Saturday being a holiday, Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs), which have made heavy net investments of Rs 369 crore on Thursday after a slowing down activity during early part of the week, were conspicuous by their absence.

Operators that had resorted to unwinding of positions in the past couple of sessions, availed the opportunity to enter into fresh commitments in a bid to push the prices up, brokers said.

Blue chips like ACC, BHEL, Bajaj Auto, BSES, Dr Reddy's Lab, Grasim, GACL, HDFC Bank, HLL, Hindalco, Infosys Tech, ITC, L&T, Ranbaxy Lab, RIL, SBI, Tata Motor, Tata Power, Tisco and Satyam Computers scored impressive gain.

Both the National Stock Exchange (NSE) and the BSE remained open for trading between 11.00 hrs and 13.00 hrs (IST) to facilitate testing of the NSE back-up facilities in Chennai.

PTI