By IANS
New Delhi : Helped by net purchases worth a whopping $1.76 billion by foreign funds and all-round buying interest, Indian equities were on a roll during the week ended Friday sending two major indices to new all-time peaks.
In each of the five trading days, the markets ended with gains, helped not just by the rate cut announced by the US Fed, but also domestic factors like fall in inflation rate and hints of central bank intervention in forex market.
The first big development came Wednesday, when the 30-share sensitive index, or Sensex, of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) breached the 17,000-point mark for the first time ever, before closing lower at 16,921.39 points.
It was a small gain of 21.85 points, or 0.13 points, but the impact had been made. In fact, it took the index all five sessions to jump 1,000 points after breaching the 16,000-point milestone Sep 19.
Previously, it took 53 sessions for the Sensex to move from 15,000 to 16,000 and 147 days from 14,000 t0 15,000.
Thursday saw the bulls keep the momentum going and the barometer index ended decisively above the psychologically important mark at 17,150.56 points, to register a gain of 229.17 points, or 1.35 percent.
As the week drew to a close, the index had gained 726.87 points, or 4.39 percent at 17,291.10 points – the fourth successive week the key index ended with gains. Over the past month, it has gained 1,371.91 points or 15.90 percent.
The story was similar for another index, the broad-based Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE). It saw its moment of glory Thursday when it scaled the 5,000-point mark for the first time, taking 203 sessions from the 4,000 level.
Looking ahead, analysts said investors will closely watch out for the corporate results for the second quarter of this fiscal as well as hints from the central bank and the finance ministry on interventions in the forex market.
“There were several factors that kept the momentum going for Indian equities. The global markets revived after the Fed’s rate cut and foreign funds resumed their investments in India in right earnest,” said an equities analyst.
“The finance minister’s statement that he saw the central bank intervene in the foreign exchange market if the rupee’s movement gets unruly was also welcomed by investors,” added the analyst, who works for a brokerage here.
Data available with the markets watchdog Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) showed that foreign institutional investors were net purchasers in all the five trading days of the week, with a net of $1,726.80 million.
Analysts also pointed out that unlike the rallies in the past, the gains this week were broad-based with every counter ending higher as trading drew to a close Friday.