Sensex breezes past 11,000

Market capitalisation at Rs 29.5 trillion; 1,000 point gain in 33 sessions.

After a week of pausing to catch its breath, the market seems to have started on yet another sprint. Four trading sessions after it hesitantly crossed the 11,000-point mark and fell back just as soon, the Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark index today rose more than 1 per cent to close above the psychologically crucial mark for the first time. The Sensex took 33 trading days to travel from 10,000 to 11,000.

Led by fast-moving consumer goods and metals stocks, the Sensex closed at 11,079, up by 129 points today, and by 238.43 points, or 2.2 per cent, in the last two sessions. The 50-stock Nifty, too, touched a lifetime high of 3,327.05 points but fell back to 3,321.65, up 41.85 points over Friday's close.

The trend was also reflected in the market breadth on the BSE where, unlike Friday, more than 52 per cent of the stocks ended in the black, compared with an even split on the last trading day. Similarly, gains were stronger for the small and mid-cap segments than any of the cross-segment indices like the Sensex, the BSE 100 and the BSE 500.

The index is up nearly 18 per cent in 2006, boosted by net foreign portfolio investments of more than $3.5 billion, following a record $10.7 billion inflow in 2005.

The BSE market capitalisation today touched an all-time high of Rs 29.5 trillion ($661 billion), about 90 per cent of the country's GDP. In terms of market capitalisation, the BSE now ranks 16th among the world markets.

Among the sectors, except for information technology and consumer durables, all the indices showed gains today with metals and FMCG far ahead of the others with gains of more than 3 per cent.

JSW Steel, up by 9.97 per cent to Rs 291.20, Essar Steel (up 8.6 per cent to Rs 45.45,) Tata Steel (up 5.01 per cent to Rs 518 ) and SAIL (up 4.39 per cent to Rs 84.4) were the pick of the bunch. Hindalco firmed up 3.1 per cent to Rs 175.15 and Hindustan Zinc added 2.5 per cent to Rs 429.60.

Hind Lever was the biggest gainer among index stocks, rising 5.2 per cent to Rs 268.55 as the company raised some product prices by 6 per cent. ITC climbed 3.9 per cent to Rs 192.70 and Colgate-Palmolive India added 1.6 per cent to Rs 415.05.

Power stocks witnessed renewed buying. Tata Power gained by 1.50 per cent to Rs 595, CESC gained 1.45 per cent to Rs 339 and Reliance Energy gained 0.85 per cent to Rs 614 following a steep decline in recent trading weeks. Pharmaceutical scrips closed in positive territory.

Cadila advanced by 3 per cent to Rs 662, Dr Reddy's Laboratories gained 1 per cent to Rs 1,449, Cipla rose 2 per cent to Rs 639, and Aurobindo Pharma rose by over 3 per cent to Rs 674 after the company announced that the board would consider selling securities overseas on April 1.

The inflows from abroad continued to be strong throughout last week, with close to Rs 11,000 crore being pumped in since the Sensex first crossed the 10,000-point mark nearly a month-and-a-half ago.

Mutual funds, too, were reported to have turned net buyers in March after staying away from increasing their exposure for the last three months.

The Sensex tracked the overall firm trend across the regional indices. Asian stocks also rose, led by Japan's Nikkei index (0.54 per cent), Hang Seng (0.63 per cent) and Kospi 200 Index (up 0.92 per cent).