• Home
• /
• Business

Sensex rises 120 points

MUMBAI — The market saw a complete trend reversal yesterday and settled with gains from initial weakness. Cues from the global markets were not encouraging either. A sharp short covering drive led the benchmark 30-share BSE Sensex above the 13,500 mark end of the day. Shares from IT sector led the rally yesterday.

The Sensex jumped 120.34 points, or 0.85 per cent, to 14,338.45. It had opened weak at 14,073 and plunged to a low of 14,046.06 on intense selling pressure for the third straight day as key pivotals declined. But from here it started advancing till it struck an intra-day high of 14,364.95.

The S&P CNX Nifty surged 43.25 points or 1.03 per cent at 4,248.15.

Interestingly, all the European market and majority of Asian markets were trading weak. The Hang Seng index lost 1.34 per cent, while the Nikkei 225 index was down 1.22 per cent.

Suzlon Energy galloped a huge 17.76 per cent to Rs1364.70 on high volumes of 17.55 lakh shares on BSE. It surged to a high of Rs1420, on momentum buying after the world's sixth largest wind turbine generator finally secured German REpower as French major Areva opted out of the race. Interestingly, the REpower stock tumbled 10 per cent in last trade and closed at 150 euros. Suzlon's last bid for REpower was also at 150 euros per share, valuing it at 1.5 billion euro.

The total turnover on BSE amounted to Rs5,023.46 crore. The NSE futures and options (F&O) turnover was at Rs42,530.32 crore, while the total market wide turnover was at Rs57,367.43 crore.

The market breadth, which indicates the overall health of the market, saw a sharp trend reversal. It was weak with 970 shares declining as compared to 596 advancing at 10:30 IST. But it turned positive in the post-lunch session as buying emerged for small- and mid-cap stocks: on BSE 1,426 shares advanced as compared to 1,169 that declined, while 83 remained unchanged.

The BSE Mid-Cap Index settled at 6,143.14 rising 42.67 points, or 0.7 per cent, while the BSE Small-Cap Index advanced 64.17 points, or 0.89 per cent, to 7,265.92.

Among the Sensex pack, 22 advanced, while the 8 declined.

IT stocks were back in demand as the rupee dipped further against the dollar and was quoted marginally lower in late morning trading following continued weakness in equity market.

In quite trade at the Interbank Foreign Exchange (forex) market, local currency resumed lower at 40.61/62 per dollar from overnight close of 40.59/60 a dollar and later traded arround 40.6150 level in late morning deals.

Meanwhile, traders feel the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) move to hike the cash reserve ratio (CRR), more likely only on incremental deposits, is expected to provide some stability in the forex market.

The BSE IT Index gained 2.49 per cent at 4,959.36, and was the second best performing sectoral index on BSE.

Satyam Computers jumped 3.53 per cent to Rs472.10, and was the top gainer. Wipro (up 2 per cent to Rs542.50), Infosys (up 2.92 per cent to Rs1991) and TCS (up 0.66 per cent to Rs1232) were the other gainers.

A rise in the rupee directly impacts revenue and profit of IT firms, which derive a lion's share of revenue from exports to the US.

Second-rung software scrips also joined the rally. MphasiS (up 1.68 per cent to Rs308.55), i-flex (up 1.33 per cent to Rs2220), NIIT Technologies (up 11.59 per cent to Rs613) and CMC (up 4.78 per cent to Rs1235) gained.