By IANS
Mumbai : Indian shares Monday staged a smart recovery after last week’s carnage, with a key index settling two percent up, led by banking stocks even as a rally in the Asian markets smoothed global trends.
The 30-share sensitive index (Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) hit a high of 14,680-points in intra-day trading before closing 286.03 points or 2.02 percent up at 14,427.55 points.
Twenty-one of the Sensex components traded in the positive territory Monday.
After hitting its all-time high of 15,868.85 July 24, the Sensex had lost 4.9 percent last week as the global markets saw selling pressure.
The broader 50-issue National Stock Exchange (NSE) index, Nifty, also firmed up 101 points or 2.46 percent to close at 4,209.05.
Leading the Sensex charge was top private sector lender ICICI Bank, up 5.57 percent at Rs.871.95. It was followed by HDFC Bank, up 5.21 percent at Rs.1,125.00 and state-run energy explorer ONGC, up 4.54 percent at Rs.818.25.
Tata Steel, Bharti Airtel, Ranbaxy Laboratories, Bharat Heavy Electricals, Hindustan Unilever, Reliance Communications and India’s most valuable firm Reliance Industries were among other top gainers.
Technology stocks, however, took a beating with fourth largest software exporter Satyam Computers leading the major losers, down 1.75 percent at Rs.432.50, followed by third largest software exporter Infosys Technologies, down 1.39 percent at Rs.1,829.00, and its bigger rival Wipro, down 1.26 percent at Rs.469.50.
Multi-utility vehicle maker Mahindra and Mahindra and top software exporter Tata Consultancy Services also traded in the negative turf.