Markets gained smartly in late-noon trade on the back of buying in IT stocks as reports of government tabling some key reform bills in Parliament this week also helped improve investor sentiment in D-Street and helped key indices to end in the positive for the fourth straight day.
Higher world stocks and data showing third day of buying by foreign funds on Thursday perked up sentiments globally and India merrily latched on the optimistic mood.
Kotak Securities Vice President Sanjeev Zarbade said in general equity markets have rallied during the week shrugging off under-performance in the previous week. “The Sensex outperformed against the Dow Jones as well as FTSE. ...The market sentiment in the US has been very positive with the VIX Index (Volatility index or fear index) down significantly indicating continued easing of investor fears.”
On similar vein, Devang Mehta of Anand Rathi Financial Services said: “We are seeing a lot of strong buying as well as market breadth has been strong and it is encouraging that FIIs and DIIs both have been buying in the last two-three days....”
Asian markets jumped in trades with+ Nikkei gaining after two days. The Japanese market moved up 1 per cent to 9,536. Hang Seng and Shanghai Composite were up 1 per cent each.
All the sectoral indices on BSE logged gains. BSE IT index surged 3.6 per cent to 6,321 on better-than-expected US tech earnings data, while auto stocks were in demand on renewed buying. Banking stocks extended recent gains after the government tabled banking sector amendment bill in parliament this week.
Market heavyweight, Reliance gained 1.5 per cent to Rs 1,026 as higher crude oil prices will help boost refining margins, while ONGC advanced 1 per cent to Rs 276 on crude’s upmove.
The popular Sensex at BSE closed at 18,815.64 points, an increase of 2.53 per cent or 464.90 points. The index gained 507.56 points at the day’s high of 18,858.30 in late trade and rose 129.95 points at the day’s low of 18,480.69 in early trade. The 50-unit Nifty at NSE settled at 5654.25 in the day’s closing, an increase of 131.85 points or 2.39 per cent, its highest closing since January 25, 2011. The Nifty hit an intraday high of 5,667.10.
Broader markets were trading firm but could not manage to outperform the benchmark indices. The BSE mid-cap and small-cap indices gained 1 per cent and 1.02 per cent each to 6,721.56 and 8,001.63 respectively.
The market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, was strong with as many as 1722 shares on BSE advanced while 1255 scrips declined and a total of 106 stocks remained unchanged. The total turnover on BSE amounted to Rs 3265 crore, lower than Rs 3553 crore in the previous session.