The Hindu Business Line : Market rebounds on positive overseas signals; Sensex gains 817 pts

The market sentiment was boosted by positive signals from the overseas markets, but volumes were low, stock traders said. The benchmark equity indices Sensex gained by 4.82 per cent and Nifty gained by 5.5 per cent.

Both Asian and the US markets were up on the back of reports of higher US retail sale and Japanese GDP growth, said an analyst.

Sensex gained 817 points and went past the 16,000 levels to close at 17,766.63 points, the broad based Nifty index gained 272 points to close at 5202.

“Indian stock markets rose in line with the global markets. Higher US retail sales data and Japanese GDP growth figures led to a higher opening and there was short covering towards the close that led to further rise,” Mr Dipen Shah, Vice-President, Private Client Group, Kotak Securities, said.

Sensex opened with a gain of 316 points at 17,265 and within minutes went up by over 600 points. It gained further 200 points in the one-way rally during the later part of the trading session.

Market has been witnessing such huge jumps and slumps in indices in the recent past. On January 25, Sensex gained 1,139 points after it crashed to 15,000 levels in intra-day trade on January 22.

“Although the market has bounced back we still need to wait and watch to see whether this is sustainable”, said Mr Mayank Dalal, Senior Vice-President, Centrum Capital Markets.

“Investors like domestic mutual funds and insurance companies are going for value buying at lower levels in stocks that had good quarterly earnings as prices are looking attractive,” said Mr Motilal Oswal, CMD, Motilal Oswal Financial Services. The Indian market is integrated with the global markets and decoupling is still something that is debatable, he added.

FIIs were net buyers by Rs 61 crore and domestic institutional investors by Rs 205 crore as per the combined provisional data for BSE and NSE.

The hike in petrol and diesel price by Rs 2 and Re 1 also worked positively for the oil companies. BSE Oil & Gas index gained 7.42 per cent; other indices that gained heavily were Power (8.14 per cent); Realty (7.58 per cent); Capital Goods (7.53 per cent) and Bankex (4.64 per cent).

In the broad-based rally, all Sensex stock made gains led by index heavyweights Reliance Industries (5.35 per cent), ICICI Bank (5.74 per cent) and Larsen & Toubro (7.03 per cent).