Recouping losses suffered due to a fall in Infosys profit, the BSE benchmark Sensex on Tuesday rose by 49 points to end the day at two-and-a-half-year high level.
Marketmen said Reliance Industries attracted good buying support in the last hours of trading and helped the 30-share index close 48.70 points, or 0.27 per cent, higher at 17,985.90, the best closing since February 19, 2008.
The key index had touched the psychological 18,000-level yesterday. In the past four days, it has notched up 515 points.
The broad-based Nifty-50 of the National Stock Exchange, too, added 0.33 per cent to end at 5,400.65 points, its best closing in the last one year.
Brokers said IT bellwether Infosys’s June quarter numbers were below market expectations and dampened the sentiment in early trade. “Infosys numbers were slightly below estimates,” said Rohit Anand, who tracks the IT sector at Pioneer Investcorp Ltd.
The software major today reported a 2.42 per cent fall in in first quarter profit to Rs. 1,488 crore, dragging down the IT index by 2.68 per cent, the most in all the 13 sectoral indices.
The Nasdaq-listed Infosys sank 3.44 per cent on BSE. The stock had hit a one-year high yesterday on hopes of the company coming out promising results.
Panicked by poor Infy numbers, investors also dumped other bluechip IT stocks. TCS plunged 2.09 per cent and Wipro 0.94 per cent.
Bucking the trend, petrochemical giant RIL attracted good buying and rose nearly 2 per cent. A rise in frontline financial stocks also helped reverse the trend and pushed the Sensex up.
Marketmen attributed to sudden buying in RIL to media reports that the energy giant is in talks to acquire its third shale gas asset in America. RIL enjoys the maximum weight in the Sensex.
Realty, metal and energy stocks, too, helped the markets end the day in the positive terrain.
DLF ended 4.26 per cent higher, the best among the Sensex stocks.
HDFC rose 2.02 per cent, SBI 1.19 per cent, HDFC Bank 1.03 per cent and ICICI Bank 1.02 per cent.
Metal stocks gained for another day. Tata Steel climbed 2.20 per cent, Hindalco 1.27 per cent and Sterlite Industries 0.47 per cent.
“Sustained strength in realty, metal and oil and gas sectors managed to offset weakness in IT,” IIFL Vice-President (Research) Amar Ambani said.
In the BSE-30, 17 stocks ended with gains, while 12 closed in the red. Hero Honda remained unchanged.
