Indices shoot up up over 1%

STOCK REPORT

Confirming that Wednesday's marginal fall was a mere blip, bulls further strengthened their grip on the market, with the key indices stretching Thursday's gains to end at new highs on Friday. Dealers said that apart from high liquidity, the market charged up by SEBI's decision on Wednesday allowing mutual funds to trade freely in derivatives.

The Sensex ended at 8380.96, up 97.20 points, or 1.2 per cent, over Thursday. The Nifty closed at 2552.35, up 28.40 points, or 1.1 per cent. Both the indices ended at new closing highs and also touched record all-time highs in intra-day trade.

Dealers said the buying spree was so strong that it put aside the normally held belief that the last session of the week is bereft of sharp movements. A large number of frontline shares rose to their 52-week highs.

More shares advancing when compared with those that fell in all the groups on the BSE is evidence of the domination of bulls.

Volumes also rose significantly. Shares worth Rs 75.89 billion were traded on the NSE in the cash segment, against Rs 63.80 billion on Thursday.

"The buying was mainly because of SEBI's (Securities and Exchange Board of India) decision. The feeling is that mutual funds will now be treated at par with foreign institutional investors," said Vijay L. Bhambwani, investment consultant and chief executive officer, BSPLIndia.com. He also attributed short-covering for the surge.

Leading the gainers were Housing Development and Finance Corp. and Bharti Tele-Ventures, both up over 6 per cent. Maruti Udyog rose 3.7 per cent. All three stocks had touched new 52-week highs in intra-day trade.

Index heavyweights Oil and Natural Gas Corp. rose 2.4 per cent and Reliance Industries 0.4 per cent. In intra-day trade, ONGC touched an all-time high of 1036.

On Thursday, the government invited initial bids to appoint advisors for divestment of its 8 per cent stake in MUL to public financial institutions and banks. While the gains were spectacular, today's session had its ups and downs.

The indices went into the red after around an hour of opening because of profit-booking. The Sensex hit a low of 8268.60 and the Nifty a low of 2519.05 then. However, as was the trend this week, good buying later lifted the indices.

The gains were broad-based. However, frontline information technology shares fell with the exception of Tata Consultancy Services, which rose 0.5 per cent. Wipro closed flat. The CNX IT Index rose 0.1 per cent to 3284.65.

All the indices on BSE and NSE ended in the positive territory. On the BSE, the PSU Index gained the most, with a rise 1.2 per cent to 5004.78 points.

The CNX Midcap Index rose 0.3 per cent to 3863.90.

Amar Remedies, which listed on the exchanges today, saw its share price zoom to a high of Rs 64.70 on NSE, after listing at Rs 56. It later fell to the day's low of Rs 47. The shares ended at Rs 56.20, up 100.7 per cent. Each share was issued at 28 rupees.