Mumbai, Dec. 29: A subdued end to a terrific year. Yet, the market spirit remains unbeatable for the coming year.

Despite hopes and predictions that the sensex will settle atop mount 14K at the end of the year, the 30-share bellwether index today closed just a shade below 13800.

The last trading session of the year saw the index opening higher at 13873.03 against yesterday’s close of 13846.34. Though it touched an intra-day high of 13929.10, profit-selling in some of the blue chips saw the index dipping to a low of 13770.06 in late trade. It closed 59.43 points or 0.43 per cent lower at 13786.91.

Nevertheless, 2006 has been a phenomenal year for the stock market. While the sensex breached five important milestones in the year from 10000 to 14000, it also witnessed bloodbath on Dalal Street when the bellwether index had its highest ever fall of 826 points on May 18.

However, in the four-year bull run, this year has been the highest return grosser with an annual return of 47 per cent, next only to 2003 when the returns were 68 per cent.

The Nifty had a similar dream run, breaching the 4000 level for the first time and giving a return of 40 per cent for the year, though it also settled below the mark and ended the year at 3966.40 points.

According to market trackers, strong corporate numbers, coupled with buoyant internal fundamentals, spurred the indices to new heights with banking, telecom, technology and cement shares grabbing the limelight.

Foreign investors continued to scoop up Indian stocks and according to data available on the Sebi website, the net foreign investment inflow in 2006 totalled $8 billion compared with $10.7 billion in 2005. Back home, mutual funds bought shares worth a net of Rs 12,094.94 crore during the nine-month period of April to December.

“The market movement for the next year will be mostly governed by foreign fund inflows as internal economics continue to be buoyant,” said Manish Sonthalia, vice-president (equity strategy), Motilal Oswal Securities.

But will the market scale such peaks as it did during the year? “This will be the fifth year of a bull run and thus it is unlikely that the markets will scale such sharp peaks in such a random manner as we witnessed this year. The markets would require some time to consolidate and thus, it would be difficult to predict the movement over the next year," said Sonthalia. “However, the market should touch 15000 by the end of fiscal 2007,” he said.

PAN details

The government today ruled out any extension of the deadline of December 31 for investors to submit their PAN details to depositories for trading on the bourses. Non-compliance would lead to suspension of the account, it added.