Date:26/03/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/03/26/stories/2008032655981500.htm

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Sensex on a comeback trail

Oommen A Ninan

Realty sector lead the rally followed by the much-sought after banking stocks

— Photo: AP

Bullish mood: A cow looks at a sculpture of a bull placed in the premises of the Bombay Stock Exchange, in Mumbai on Tuesday. Indian shares ended sharply higher as investors bought blue chips, especially in the technology and banking sectors.

MUMBAI: Along with its global peers, indicating a strong comeback trail, the domestic benchmark market index gained 928.09 points, the second biggest single day point gain for Sensex. Surprisingly, realty sector led the rally with a gain of 9.48 per cent followed by the much-sought after banking stocks (Bankex), 8.10 per cent.

The broader markets also followed suit. The BSE mid cap shot up by 6.36 per cent at 6174.49, BSE small cap gained 4.81 per cent at 7284.64 and BSE 500 jumped up by 6.18 per cent at 6221.98. The Bombay Stock Exchange 30-Share Sensitive Index (Sensex) breached the 16000-mark again to end at 16217.49 a gain of 6.07 per cent. The 50-Share Nifty gained 267.65 points or 5.81 per cent at 4877.50.

In the recent past, any upward movement was taken as an opportunity for profit booking by investors, fearing reports of global financial uncertainty. However, the strength gained by other global markets, especially the U.S. markets, was taken as a cue by the local investors to hold on to their investments.

Among the Asian giants, Japan’s Nikkei gained 265.13 points and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng a whopping 1356.30 points. In the European markets, FTSE 100 moved up by 185.20 points, CAC 40 (156.24 points) and DAX (194.34 points). On Monday, in the U.S. markets, NYSE gained 1.63 per cent, Nasdaq gained 3.04 per cent, and S&P 500 gained 1.53 per cent.

However, when the U.S. markets opened for Tuesday, except Nasdaq all other indices, were in the negative territory. All the BSE sector indices closed positive. Realty, bank and IT (7.73 per cent) stocks were among the top gainers of the day. Power stocks gained 6.45 per cent, metal gained 6.41 per cent, oil and gas gained 5.94 per cent, auto gained 4.03 per cent and fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) gained 2.14 per cent.

ICICI Bank, REL, DLF, Unitech, Tata Power, TCS, Infosys, Satyam, RCom, Tata Steel, SAIL and JP Associates were among the gainers.