Sensex back to winning ways; realty, IT stocks attract buying

Riding on a rally in realty, banking and IT stocks, the Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark index ended higher by over 75 points on Friday to resume its winning ways.

Aggressive buying by foreign institutional investors saw the bellwether index rising by close to 400 points before profit selling in the last session ahead of the weekend washed out the lion's share of initial gains.

Realty, banking and IT counters bucked profit-booking to help the benchmark Sensex cut short its steep losses overnight and settle the day higher by over 75 points.

The 30-share barometer touched a high of 11,339.47, a rise of about 392 points from Thursday's close. However, profit-booking pulled it down to settle the day at 11,023.09, still a rise of 75.69 points or 0.69 per cent over its last close.

Similarly, the 50-issue Nifty of the National Stock Exchange also recovered by 14.90 points or 0.44 per cent to 3,384.40 from its previous close.

FIIs were said to be net buyers to the tune of Rs 479.09 crore while domestic funds sold shares worth Rs 1,124.24 crore on Thursday as per provisional data.

Asian indices ended mixed while European markets resumed higher, partly helping the bellwether index to land in positive terrain at close.

Brokers said there is an optimism that markets would surge and many anticipate easing of monetary policy by the Reserve Bank of India. Inflation declining to new 30-year low of 0.38 per cent has also strengthened the anticipation of rate by by the central bank.

Realty, banking and IT indices were big gainers of the day. The BSE-realty spurted 3.13 per cent, bankex 2.93 per cent and IT index 2.92 per cent.

Among the top gainers from the elite Sensex club, L&T rose by 4.21 per cent, Infosys Tech 3.86 per cent, SBI 3.54 per cent, ICICI Bank 3.53 per cent, REL Infra 2.30 per cent, HDFC 2.25 per cent and Grasim by 1.58 per cent.

However, Hindalco dropped by 5.18 per cent, followed by Tata Steel at 4.03 per cent and Sterlite Ind 3.12 per cent. Tata Motors at 2.86 per cent and Sun Pharma at 2.48 per cent also figured among the big losers.

The market breadth turned positive as 1,362 counters ended with gains while 1,194 closed with losses on the BSE.

The trading volume fell sharply to Rs 5,569.51 crore from Rs 7,149.45 crore on Thursday. Unitech topped the list of highest traded securities with a turnover of Rs 351.13 crore followed by Reliance Capital (Rs 331.00 crore), RIL (Rs 277.99 crore), Tata Steel (Rs 193.05 crore) and SBI (Rs 190.48 cr).

However, the BSE-Metal dropped by 114.36 points or 1.66 per cent and the BSE-HC by 24.38 points or 0.80 per cent.