Bargain—hunting in blue chips like RIL and ICICI Bank and better—than—expected industrial growth data halted the tumbling of stock markets, with the benchmark Sensex rebounding today by 266 points.
Despite opening on a weak note for the fourth straight session, the Bombay Stock Exchange bellwether Sensex gained momentum on value buying and reversed early losses to finish with a smart gain of 266.53 points or 1.39 per cent at 19,508.89.
It lost about 740 points in the previous three sessions.
The National Stock Exchange’s wide—based Nifty also followed a similar trend and ended 90.85 points or 1.58 per cent higher at 5,857.35.
Analysts said that Dalal Street —— hit by a series of scams including widening probe of 2G spectrum allocation, bribery—for—loans scandal and Sebi’s probe to check insider trading in mid—cap firms —— took a breather with the handsome growth in the October industrial output numbers.
“India’s Industrial production growth of 10.8 per cent in October was above our estimate of 8.3 per cent and is a big jump from the 4—5 per cent growth in the preceding two months,” IIFL Economist Ashutosh Datar said.
The biggest relief came from heavy buying in the country’s most valued firm Reliance Industries, which made a great come back after last session’s weakness and soared by 4 per cent, giving a much needed push to the broader market.
“Market was in an oversold zone, which gave investors an opportunity to enter at attractive lower levels and the IIP data also boosted the shattered confidence of the investors,” Geojit BNP Paribas Financial Services Research Head Alex Mathews said.
The private sector lender ICICI Bank also supported the rally on the bourses and advanced by 5.71 per cent, erasing its five—day losses. SBI too bucked the losing trend and ended with a gain of 1.87 per cent.
However, HDFC Bank was the show spoiler and plunged by 0.82 per cent, listing among 8 of the Sensex—30 losing scrips.
Apart from HDFC bank, Bharti Airtel and Tata Motors were instrumental in offsetting Sensex gains. While the telecom giant witnessed a dip of 2.27 per cent, the auto major slipped by 1.90 per cent. However, RCom today saw a comeback with a rise of 2.98 per cent.
Besides, after witnessing a meltdown in the previous sessions, metal counters dazzled with Jindal Steel and Hindalco stealing the show with a gain of 2.39 per cent and 2.34 per cent respectively.
“Slight weakness in dollar and firming global cues strengthened the metal stocks,” Mathews said
Realty major JP Associates grabbed attention of the investors and went up by 4.65 per cent, while DLF witnessed a slump of 0.19 per cent.
All the 13 sectoral indices ended in the positive terrain with the consumer durables and banking index leading the gains.
On the global front, firm opening at European bourses also supported the sentiment back home. In Asian markets, China’s Shanghai ended 1.07 per cent higher while Japan’s Nikkei was down 0.72 per cent.
