By IANS
Mumbai : It was a yet another roller coaster ride for the Indian capital markets for the entire week.
It was a newsy week in the stock markets with the sensitive index of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) crossing the psychologically important 20,000 mark on the first day. The broader S&P CNX Nifty also hit an all time high of 6,000 points.
On Tuesday, the RBI announced a hike in the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) that banks have to maintain, which means there will be less money in the market. But on Wednesday US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke announced another rate cut of 25 basis points. That allowed more capital inflows to the Indian equity markets.
The market rallied sharply on short coverings on Friday and closed near the 20,000 mark on robust buying in banking and oil stocks.
The Indian market displayed tremendous strength despite feeble global cues. The Sensex went into a major recovery mode towards the close Friday and surged over 252 points during the intra-day trades despite opening 427 points down and staying in negative territory for the better part of the day on account of heavy selling in heavy weights and IT stocks.
But a recovery in major banking stocks and short covering in frontline stocks turned the sentiment bullish. The market rallied sharply towards the close Friday and the Sensex surged past the 20,000 mark to touch the day’s high of 20,026. It ended the session at 19,976, gaining 252 points from Thursday’s close, while the Nifty added 66 points to close at 5,932.
The breadth of the market was neutral. Of the 2,802 stocks traded on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) 1,399 advanced, 1,340 declined and 63 ended unchanged.
Among the sectoral indices the BSE Banking index flared up by 3.59 percent, the BSE PSU surged 2.35 percent, the BSE Oil & Gas index improved 1.70 percent and the BSE Realty index gained 1.34 percent. Other sectoral indices were up around one percent each. However, the BSE Tech index ended in negative territory.
Larsen & Toubro gained on entering into a joint venture with US-based Gulf Interstate Engineering Company. However, Mahindra & Mahindra slipped despite signing a joint venture agreement with International Truck & Engine Corporation of USA.
The recovery in the market was led by State Bank of India (SBI), which shot up by 8.74 percent to Rs.2,252.
Among the major gainers HDFC Bank advanced by 4.97 percent to Rs.1,759, Reliance Energy moved up by 4.78 percent to Rs.1,852, ONGC grew 2.70 percent to Rs.1,366, ICICI Bank scaled up by 2.44 percent to Rs.1,331 and Grasim jumped 2.18 percent to Rs.3,746.
Some index stocks witnessed selling pressure. Bharti Airtel was the major loser and dropped 5.10 percent to Rs.895 while, ACC, Satyam Computers, HDFC, Wipro, Cipla, M&M, Reliance Communication, Hindalco, and Bajaj Auto ended with marginal losses.