Mumbai, March 29: The Sensex today beat the Dow Jones index to close at a lifetime high of 11183.48.

The Dow Jones closed at 11154.54 points on Tuesday after a fall of 96 points due to a rise in interest rates by the US Federal Reserve and on speculations that more such hikes are in the offing.

The Karachi stock index has also scaled a peak of its own at 11499 as global punters placed big bets on what many have regarded as a very fickle exchange.

The FIIs continue to pump money into India but there’s a growing feeling that the returns from India won’t be great this year. It’s this realisation which is stoking interest in Karachi and a few other emerging markets.

Among global markets, Asian indices, with the exception of Hong Kong, ended higher. Japan’s Nikkei 225 index rose 1.49 per cent or 248.17 points to 16938.41, its highest close in five and a half years.

Back home, the sensex closed 97.45 points or 0.88 per cent higher, while rallying to a fresh all-time high of 11197.64 in late trading as buying intensified in the last one hour of trade. The Nifty rose 29.20 points or 0.87 per cent to an all-time closing high of 3354.20.

In a continuing rally backed by sustained buying, the sensex gained 3.15 per cent or 342 points in the last four trading sessions.

Stocks from aluminium, banking, cement, petrochemical, pharma and software sectors were the chief gainers today, while select auto, engineering and steel stocks ended lower.

The renewed buying interest in small-cap and mid-cap shares.

FIIs were net buyers of stocks to the tune of Rs 550.20 crore while domestic mutual funds bought Rs 513.82 crore worth of shares on March 27.

The market breadth was strong. 1628 shares rose on BSE as compared to 859 stocks that declined. 72 shares remained unchanged. The total turnover on BSE amounted to Rs 3,811 crore, lower than Tuesday's turnover of Rs 5,946 crore.

Ranbaxy Labs, Infosys, Wipro, Satyam, VSNL and Sun Pharma were the biggest gainers on the indices, while ACC, Dr Reddy's Labs, HDFC, Tata Power, SAIL, NALCO and Oriental Bank were the biggest losers.

IT stocks were in demand on expectations of robust quarterly results. Satyam Computers surged 4.30 per cent to Rs 855.90 on 7.87 lakh shares. Infosys Technologies advanced 2.5 per cent to Rs 3032. The BSE IT Index continued to outperform the other indices on the second trading session and closed at 4,027.81, up 2.42 per cent.