Sensex ends 318 points up as markets turn stronger

Overcoming initial pressure, the Bombay Stock Exchange 30-share Sensex surged by 318 points to end at a six-month high of 11,284.63 on the revival of buying support.

Initially, the market touched a low of 10,719.18 as IT bellwether Infosys Technologies this morning came out with a discouraging forecast for the current year.

Today's rally for the Sensex being for the eighth day in a row, the index registered a net gain of 317.51 points or 2.90 per cent over its previous close.

The National Stock Exchange's 50-share Nifty also firmed up by 101.55 points or 3.00 per cent to close at 3,484.15 from its last close.

Brokers said sustained net purchases by foreign funds and expectations of further monetary steps by the Reserve Bank of India also boosted market sentiment later in the day.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) pumped in more than Rs 580 crore in equity on Monday, as per provisional figures.

They attributed the early setback to a 1.71 per cent dip in the fourth-quarter earnings of Infosys over the previous quarter, which negatively impacted IT stocks during the day. Infosys Tech was down by 2.72 per cent at close.

Shares of realty, capital goods, power and banks were the major gainers of the day while IT shares showed losses.

Among the key gainers, Tata Motors was up by 11.50 per cent, DLF Ltd by 10.00 per cent, BHEL by 9.48 per cent, REL Infra by 7.00 per cent, ICICI Bank by 6.77 per cent, Larsen & Toubro by 6.65 per cent, SBI by 6.38 per cent, Ranbaxy by 6.25 per cent, Sun Pharma by 5.63 per cent, M&M by 5.39 per cent, HDFC by 5.06 per cent and REL Com by 4.95 per cent.

TCS dropped by 2.39 per cent and HDFC Bank by 1.17 per cent.

The market breadth remained strong with 2,173 gainers against 463 losers on the BSE.

The trading volume was fairly high at 7,701.78 crore. Reliance Capital was the most active scrip with the highest turnover of Rs 343.60 crore followed by RIL (Rs 324.97 crore), Essar Oil (Rs 271.18 crore), ICICI Bank (Rs 266.70 crore) and DLF (Rs 202.85 crore).

Among the sectoral indices, the realty index shot up by 186.77 points or 8.79 per cent, capital goods by 551.15 points or 7.36 per cent, power by 106.96 points or 5.19 per cent and bankex by 240.30 points or 4.53 per cent.

The small-cap and mid-cap indices also shot up by 208.29 or 5.32 and 136.97 points or 3.95 per cent, respectively.