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Markets this Week
The Congress led UPA's (United Progressive Alliance) astounding victory in the Lok Sabha elections pushed the Indian bourses to dizzying heights on Monday, though only for a fleeting moment. At the opening, the markets were locked at a 15% high and trading was halted for two hours. Subsequently, the Sensex and the Nifty created history by hitting the upper circuit limit of 20 per cent.
The Sensex closed at 14,284 with its highest ever single-day gain of 2,110 points or 17.34 per cent, while the Nifty spurted 652 points or 17.7 per cent, to close at 4323. The major gainers on BSE-30 were BHEL, L&T, Reliance, DLF, ICICI Bank and HDFC.
Mid cap and small stocks on Monday hardly had any chance to participate in Dalal Street's briefest possible trading session of one minute and 10 seconds, in two bouts.
Analysts and fund managers said investors - both local and retail - did not get an opportunity to trade in mid- and small-cap stocks
On Tuesday, after Monday's euphoria has died down, the indices apparently took a break in highly volatile trading. The benchmark Sensex, after resting between 14,930 and 13,834, ended almost flat at 14,302, a marginal gain of 18 points. The Nifty eased 4 points to finish at 4,318, after touching an intra-day high of 4,509.
A third of the total traded stocks on BSE on Wednesday hit upper circuits. Of the 2,795 stocks traded, 956 hit the ceiling suggesting a broader breadth and upward movement in the mid- and small-cap stocks.
The benchmark Sensex ended lower on Wednesday as investors booked profits in select blue chips. The Sensex lost 241 points and closed at 14,060 and the Nifty also ended lower at 4270, down 48 points.
The global demand for gold rose 38 per cent to 1,016 tonnes between January and March mainly owing to largescale buying by ETFs (exchange traded funds). In value terms, demand was up 36 per cent at $29.7 billion, according to the latest World Gold Council (WGC) report.
On Thursday, the Sensex tanked 324 points and settled at 13,736 on the back of huge sell-off by operators. Weaker global cues further aided the downtrend. The wide-based Nifty also shed 59 points to finish at 4,211. Some of the prominent losers were L&T, SBI, ICICI Bank, BHEL, SAIL, HDFC, Wipro, Maruti and TCS.
The once popular fixed maturity plan (FMP) of mutual fund seems to be fast running out of favour with both investors and fund houses after SEBI tightened guidelines for FMP schemes.
Besides barring investors' premature exit from a FMP, SEBI has also stopped fund houses from giving indicative yields. Listing of FMP schemes was also made mandatory.
To mitigate the asset-liability mismatch risk, fund houses are now barred from holding papers with maturity exceeding the tenure of an FMP.
On Firday, investors turned cautions after the DMK announced that it would provide outside support to the Congress government owing to differences over portfolio allocation.
However, the Sensex added 150 points to end at 13,887 and the Nifty rose by 27 points to close at 4238. Sectoral indices, such as Capital Goods, Bankex, HealthCare, Oil&Gas, IT and Power helped the market to close in the positive terrain.
Compiled by S Vasudevan
Podcast by A Srirengarajan
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