Mumbai, Feb. 4: The 30-share sensex today gained 417 points to close at 18660.32 on positive global cues and expectations of big buys by foreign institutional investors in the coming days.

Led by realty and IT stocks, the index touched an intra-day high of 18895.34 during afternoon trade but later dropped marginally because of profit booking by retail investors and domestic institutional investors. The 50-share index of the National Stock Exchange, too, ended 146.25 points up at 5463.50.

“Positive global signals have helped our market today. Moreover, the money which was locked in the Reliance Power public offer has now been refunded to investors, which has provided some liquidity support,” said V.K. Sharma of Anagram.

Most of the Asian markets today rose for the second consecutive trading session in the absence of any negative signals from the US markets, which closed positive on Friday.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng, South Korea’s Kospi and Singapore’s Straits Times made huge gains throughout the day before settling 3.77 per cent, 3.4 per cent and 2.3 per cent up, respectively. The S&P index and Japan’s Nikkei, too, jumped 1.22 per cent and 2.7 per cent, respectively.

Many analysts feel the Indian markets are about to witness mammoth FII inflows in the coming weeks.

Some of them are speculating that FII figures are going to double from their current levels in February and March. Since the Indian markets do not have enough FII support at this point, such indications provide a boost to investor sentiments.

“The markets in China have hit the upper circuit, which means the FIIs will now look for opportunities in Indian stocks,” said Amitabh Chakraborty of Religare.

FIIs were net buyers to the tune of Rs 163 crore, while domestic institutions contributed Rs 731.83 crore today (according to provisional NSE figures). DLF, Wipro and Infosys have been today’s star performers with gains of 8.54 per cent, 6.16 per cent and 3.24 per cent, respectively.