By IANS,
Mumbai : Short covering helped Indian equities markets to end in green Wednesday after two successive sessions of losses with a key index closing more than 331 points higher to breach the psychologically important 9,000 mark once again.
The sensitive index (Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) finished at 9,026.72, up 331.19 points or 3.81 percent from its previous close Tuesday at 8,695.53 points.
The Sensex opened higher at 8,768.20 points and showed much volatility for most part of the day and began to surge strongly only late afternoon to hit an intra-day high of 9,061.72 before sliding a bit to end at its closing value.
The broader-based 50-share S&P CNX Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE), also showed a similar trend and finished at 2752.25, up 98.25 points or 3.7 percent from its previous close Tuesday at 2638.65 points.
The BSE midcap finished at 2,877.38, up 4.79 points or 0.17 percent from its previous close Tuesday at 2,872.59 points.
The BSE smallcap, however, finished in the red at 3,314.89, down 18.53 points or 0.56 percent from its previous close at 3,333.42 points.
All 13 sectoral indices finished with gains with bank, oil and gas, metals and telecommunication, media and entertainment and technology sectors gaining the most.
Only two out of the 30 stocks that make up the Sensex ended with losses. Mahindra and Mahindra finished 2.55 percent down and Maruti Suzuki lost 0.50 percent
Sterlite Industries, up 12.88 percent led the gainers, followed by ICICI Bank, up 9.55 percent, HDFC Bank, up 8.63 percent and NTPC Ltd., up 6.93 percent.
Markets opened higher although global cues were mixed.
The key index of the New York Stock Exchange finishing overnight with a gain of 1.16 percent but the Nasdaq index closed with a loss of 0.5 percent on news that technology giant Cisco will keep its plants closed for 4 days.
Asian markets too were mixed with the Nikkei, key index of the Tokyo Stock Exchange finishing with a loss of 1.33 percent but the Hang Seng, key index of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange closed 3.81 percent higher.
Although sentiments are still negative as is indicated by the fact that the madcap index finished with marginal gains and the smallcap index actually closed in the red, short covering in Sensex stocks led to the late afternoon surge, analysts said.
Whether the markets are able to sustain this positive note remains to be seen, they said.