Foreign institutional investors' net investments on the Indian bourses in the first nine trading days of October exceed their net investments in the whole of calendar 2002.

According to latest data released by the Securities and Exchange Board of India, FII net investments aggregated $766.8 million between October 1 and October 14. In comparison, FIIs pumped in a net $739.7 million in 2002.

Incidentally, this is the second time this year that FII net investments in a month have exceeded the total FII inflows in calendar 2002.

In September, FIIs net purchases were $855.1 million, but that record has been beaten in just nine trading days in the current month.

Uninterrupted FII inflows have pushed the Bombay Stock Exchange Sensex up over 9 per cent (402 points) in October from 4453.24 on September 30, 2003, to 4855.26 on Wednesday.

In highly volatile trade, the Sensex closed at 4,855.26, 1.53 per cent (73.23 points) higher than Tuesday's close. The National Stock Exchange's S&P CNX Nifty closed at 1,537, 16.20 points higher than Tuesday's close.

FIIs have been frenzied buyers on the Indian bourses, with net inflows exceeding Rs 500 crore (Rs 5 billion) on as many as four days in the last nine trading days.

Meanwhile, FIIs inflows in the first nine-and-a-half months of the current calendar year have reached to all-time record of Rs 18,000 crore (Rs 180 billion), breaching the previous high of Rs 12,820 crore (Rs 128.20 billion) in calendar 2001.

With two- and-a-half months to go till the end of the current year, FIIs inflows are 40 per cent higher than in 2001.

FII love for Indian equities was noticed immediately after the BSE Sensex touched a six-month low of 2924.02 on April 25, 2003. During the 120 trading days since then, FIIs have been net buyers for as many as 103 days.