Helped by heavy buying in last two hours of trade, the BSE benchmark Sensex on Wednesday bounced back from seven-month low levels to close 188 points up snapping a five-day losing streak on robust gains in HDFC, Infosys, TCS and ICICI Bank shares.
Tracking overnight gains in US market, the 30-share Sensex opened with gain of over 100 points but lost momentum slowly as selling picked up pace.
However, heavy buying in bluechips in the last two hours of trading tracking firm opening in Europe helped Sensex close at 18,414.45, a rise of 187.97 points or 1.03 per cent.
Similarly, the NSE 50-share Nifty also shot up by 63.60 points or 1.16 per cent to 5,558.70. According to HDFC Securities, Nifty was “oversold” in the short term and there was a “bounce due”.
IT, Banking, Capital Goods and Realty counters attracted buying. Brokers said investors felt the recent fall in share prices was overdone and picked up fundamentally strong stocks available at existing lower levels.
They said the market received further support on firming trend in Asian and European markets as Chinese imports beat forecasts and investors awaited the minutes of last month’s US Federal Reserve meeting.
Overall, investor wealth surged by Rs 50,000 crore as FIIs pumped in fresh funds after selling stocks worth Rs 1,700 crore in the last few sessions, traders said.
In 30-share Sensex pack, 21 stocks gained led by Infosys, Reliance Industries, State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, HDFC Ltd, L&T, Bajaj Auto, Bharti Airtel and Cipla.
IT stocks spurted before the Infosys quarterly results on April 12, lifting the sectoral index by 2.05 per cent.
Globally, Asian stocks ended higher, pushing the benchmark regional equities gauge higher for the third day.
Key benchmark indices in China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan rose by 0.02 per cent to 0.77 per cent while Singapore Strait times eased by 0.10 per cent.
In Europe, hopes of continued central bank stimulus by the world’s leading economies triggered buying with key benchmark indices in the UK, France and Germany moving up by 0.70-1.24 per cent range.
Indication of higher opening in US index futures also boosted the domestic markets. US stocks rose yesterday lifting the Dow Jones Industrial Average to a record high, as Wall Street cheered Alocao’s first quarter earnings.
Turning to the local market, 21 scrips out of 30-share Sensex finished higher while nine others ended lower. Sun Pharma dropped by 1.24 per cent, followed by Jindal Steel (1.01 pc), ITC (0.91 pc) and HUL (0.82 pc).
The total market breadth turned better as 858 stocks ended higher while 828 finished lower. Buying was seen across the board except S&P BSE-FMCG which finished marginally lower by 0.40 per cent. Other sectoral indices ended higher led by S&P BSE-Teck (2.10 per cent), S&P BSE-IT (2.05 pc), S&P BSE-Bankex (1.73 pc), S&P BSE-CG (1.40 pc) and S&P BSE-Realty (1.30 pc).
Meanwhile, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold shares worth a net Rs 664.90 crs yesterday as per provisional data from the stock exchanges
