Sensex rises 338 points on funds buying

MUMBAI: The Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex rose 338 points on Wednesday on frantic buying by funds and retail investors in fundamentally strong metal, refinery and capital goods sectors.

The 30-share index regained the 20,000 mark, which it lost on December 17.

The Sensex, which recorded a hefty gain of 691 points in the last trading, added another 338.40 points at 20,192.52, after touching the day's high of 20,211.47 and low of 19,896.61 points.

The second wide-based National Stock Exchange index, Nifty, also shot up by 85.65 points at 6,070.75. It surged to an intra-day high of 6,085.25 and dipped to 5,988.45 points.

The major support to the market came from metal stocks as the segment index gained the most by 470.55 points at 19,291.34, followed by oil and gas index by 437.67 points at 13,115.99. Capital goods index rose by 430.43 points at 19,654.31 and realty index by 291.47 points at 12,109.99.

PSU index rose by 196.22 points at 10,026.23, while banking index increased by 188.34 points at 11,290.08, power index by 90.55 points at 4,443.76, consumer durable index by 85.98 points at 6,227.46 and auto index by 56.07 points at 5,642.90.