The markets resumed their upmove after taking a breather in the previous trading session. In what was a reasonably volatile day of trade, the Sensex swung in a range of around 160 points before making further inroads into the positive domain. The BSE benchmark ended at 18799, higher by 132 points and the Nifty shut shop at 5640, up 32 points. The midcap index ended at 8050, higher by 54 points and the smallcap index ended at 10249, up 33 points. Banking was the star performer of the day, with the BSE bankex adding more than 2% at 12977.
Even the spike in food prices did nothing to dent the market's enthusiasm! Food inflation rose 11.47% from the previous week's annual rise of 10.86%, while the fuel price index remained unchanged at 12.71% per cent in the year to August 28. The primary articles price index was up 15.40 per cent, compared with week-ago's reading of 15.19 per cent. And the wholesale price index rose 9.97% in July from a year earlier. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will have its first mid-quarter policy review on September 16 and one would have to see if the central bank continues its hawkish monetary policy stance.
Thank the global markets! After being plagued by nervousness in the previous session, the Asian stocks bounced back to end largely in the green; Shanghai and Taiwanese markets were the sole exceptions. European shares edged higher in mid-day trades on the back of strength in mining and banking stocks as an ECB member expressed optimism on the economy. And Wall Street had a decent session of trade overnight, with the Dow rising 46 points at 10,387 and Nasdaq Composite climbing 19 points at 2,228.
M&M topped the gainers charts, ending stronger by 3.1% at Rs 655, on the BSE. And then it was banking all the way as hopes that huge infrastructure investment in the coming days will give a push to credit growth in the second half of 2010-11 gave a fillip to the banking stocks. SBI has strengthened by 3% at Rs 2982, HDFC Bank gained 2.6% at Rs 2240 and ICICI Bank added 2.4% at Rs 1050. Tata Steel, Bhel and Hero Honda were the other significant gainers during the day.
In the midcap space, BASF India zoomed by 9.9% at Rs 610, while Whirlpool soared by 8.8% at Rs 319 and Coromandel International added 8% at Rs 627. Geekay Finance, KEC International and Simplex International added between 6% and 7% each. The smallcap space saw the likes of Parekh Aluminex weakening by 15.2% at Rs 499, Karuturi Global gaining 11% at Rs 24 and Piramal Life Sciences adding 9.9% at Rs 165.
Among the losers, Cipla weakened by 1.6% at Rs 306, Tata Motors shed 1.5% at Rs 1015 and Reliance Infra lost 1.3% at Rs 1009. And index heavyweight RIL inched lower by 0.2% at Rs 957.
The market breadth was positive. Out of 3050 stocks traded on the BSE, there were 1571 advancing stocks as against 1365 declines.