Mumbai: Rising for the third straight session, the benchmark Sensex today gained 271 points to end at 28,805.10 and the Nifty index reclaimed 8,700-mark by jumping 84 points on a flurry of late buying in anticipation of positive retail inflation and IIP data.
A good showing by Europe also influenced trading, brokers said, adding that global investors lapped up a dose of monetary stimulus from Sweden’s central bank and reports that Russia and Ukraine have agreed a ceasefire will take place.
In domestic stocks, all the sectoral indices, barring FMCG sector, closed in the positive terrain with capital goods, power and IT sectors leading the rally. The Sensex resumed higher at 28,650.25 and hovered in a wide range of 28,838.52 and 28,406.25 before ending at 28,805.10, showing a gain of 271.13 points of 0.95 per cent. It has now gained by 577.71 points or 2.05 per cent in 3 days.
Similraly, the CNX 50-share Nifty rose by 84.15 points, or 0.98 per cent, to end at 8,711.55. In key earnings, Hindalco Industries reported 7.5 per cent rise in net profit for the third quarter. Its shares ended higher by 2 per cent.
“After trading range bound for most part of the session, sudden surge in last hour helped index to end with decent gains on Thursday. It seems participants bought stocks in anticipation of strong macro-economic data of IIP and CPI inflation, which is scheduled post market,” said Religare Securities, President-retail distribution, Jayant Manglik.
Sentiments were buoyed by the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s statement that the defeat in Delhi polls will not slow down the pace of economic reforms and optimism over the forthcoming Budget.
In Europe, stocks were trading higher in their early trade. The UK’s FTSE 100 was up by 0.36 per cent, France’s CAC-40 was up 0.67 per cent and Germany’s DAX 1.23 per cent. Asian stocks ended mixed today as key indices in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan rose 0.36 per cent to 1.85 per cent while Singapore and South Korea were down 0.21 per cent to 0.74 per cent.
Foreign Portfolio Investors sold shares worth a net Rs 371.27 crore yesterday as per provisional data released by the stock exchanges while Domestic institutional investors (DIIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 147.49 crore.
As many as 23 scrips out of the 30-share Sensex ended higher while seven counters finished lower. Major gainers include Dr Reddy (5.49 per cent), BHEL (4.98 per cent), Cipla (4.07 per cent), Gail India (3.23 per cent), Maruti Suzuki (2.51 per cent), Sesa Sterlite (2.04 per cent), L&T (2.02 per cent) and Tata Power (1.95 per cent).
Hero Motocorp (1.92 per cent), HDFC Bank (1.80 per cent), Axis Bank (1.69 per cent), NTPC (1.68 per cent), ICICI Bank (1.39 per cent), Infoys (1.24 per cent), RIL (1.05 per cent) and Wipro (1.03 per cent) also notched up smart gains.
Among Sensex laggards, HUL dropped by 1.53 per cent, Bajaj Auto 1.37 per cent and Bharti Airtel 1.01 per cent. Among the S&P BSE sectoral indices, Power rose by 2.51 per cent, followed by Capital Goods 2.33 per cent, Healthcare 1.69 per cent, Auto 1.47 per cent, Realty 1.28 per cent and IT 1.04 per cent.
The total market breadth remained positive as 1,616 stocks ended in green, 1,229 finished in green while 126 ruled steady. The total turnover rose to Rs 3,842.48 crore from Rs 3,269.77 crore yesterday.
