By IANS
Mumbai : It was another historic week at Indian bourses during the trading session ended Friday as the bulls were back with a vengeance and led a key index to rise close to 1,000 points on buying by mainly the domestic funds.
The benchmark sensitive index (Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) gained a whopping 961.36 points, or 5.13 percent, for the week ended Friday and shut shop at 19,698.36 points, against the previous week’s close of 18,737 points.
The broader indices BSE mid-cap and small-cap continued to outperform the market with robust buying across the board. The breadth of the market is positive with the broader S&P CNX Nifty index of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) also ending with major gains.
The BSE mid-cap closed at 8,512.38 points, gaining 98.29 points or 1.17 percent, while the small-cap index ended at 10,380.73, gaining 153.07 points or 1.50 percent.
“We expect the Sensex to hover around 18,500-20,500-point levels in the medium term. In the long term, we are extremely bullish on the market,” said Manish Arora, technical analyst with Reliance Money.
“There are lots of opportunities on the second line mid-cap stocks and some small-cap stock which will continue to outperform the index,” Arora told IANS.
Of the 2,865 actively traded stocks on the BSE, 1,909 staged an advance, 912 declined and 44 ended unchanged.
Among the sector-specific indices, BSE’s fast-moving consumer goods index flared up by 4.31 percent, the capital goods index surged 2.61 percent, the oil and gas index added 1.33 percent and the auto index gained 0.66 percent.
Analysts said the bullish sentiments prevailed even though they did not expect the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to lower the interest rates to spur demand since inflationary expectations were still high due to high crude oil and food prices.
Compared to last week when shares of the two Reliance groups were in favour, the flavour of the current week under review were those of the Essar group of the Ruia brothers.
Over 33.7 million shares of Essar Oil changed hands, while Essar Steep managed to trade 17.4 million shares. Nagarjuna Fertilisers (24.3 million shares), Facor Steel (18 million shares) and Mangalore Refinery (17.3 million shares) also saw some good trading volumes.
Essar Oil was the most traded scrip with a turnover of Rs. 6.35 billion on the BSE, followed by Reliance Petroleum (Rs.3.46 billion), Mangalore Refinery (Rs. 2.36 billion), Reliance Natural Resources (Rs. 2.13 billion) and Nagarjuna Fertilisers (Rs.1.93 billion).