For the second consecutive day it was news from China that helped the benchmark Sensex to end the day with a gain, nearly 229 points on Friday, on brisk buying at realty, auto and IT counters.
The Bombay Stock Exchange 30-share barometer initially touched a low of 14,835.08 but made a turnaround to settle the day at 15,240.83, clocking a net rise of 228.51 points or 1.52 per cent over its previous close.
The Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee's statement on Friday that the Government would take all required steps to control drought had a favourable impact on the local bourses.
The market sentiment became buoyant on firm trends in Chinese equity markets, as investors felt that any recovery in global economies is likely to begin with the world's most populous country, brokers said.
The US markets continued their winning streak for a third straight day yesterday on positive economic data, including an encouraging report on manufacturing.
The Bonanza Portfolio Assistant vice-president Avinash Gupta said, "The Indian bourses, on cues from weak Asian markets, opened weak. However, a rebound in the Chinese market buoyed investor sentiment and the Indian markets, together with European markets, rallied."
Selling by foreign funds over the last few days had a minimal impact as domestic institutional investors helped the bellwether Sensex to stay above 15,000.
The broad-based 50-issue Nifty of the National Stock Exchange went up 75.35 points or 1.69 per cent to 4,528.80 against its previous close.
The Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) remained net sellers and they sold shares of Rs 438.19 crore while domestic funds picked up shares worth Rs 489.42 crore on Thursday, according to provisional data.
In the Sensex pack, Hero Honda rose 4.84 per cent, ICICI Bank 3.64 per cent, M&M 3.58 per cent, Bharti Airtel 2.86 per cent, and ACC by 2.41 per cent.
Indicating overall market breadth, 1,711 counters ended with gains while 958 finished with losses on the BSE.
All the sectoral indices ended in the black with a rise between 0.42 per cent and 3.48 per cent. Realty spurted 130.18 points or 3.48 per cent, followed by auto, by 123.12 points or 2.27 per cent, and IT, by 71.88 points or 1.85 per cent.
