The Sensex staged a sharp pull back in the latter half of the day, as IT, energy and metal stocks rallied. Banking too rebounded into the green territory towards the end of the day. The Sensex from a low of 18,082, surged to a high of 18,457 - up 375 points from the day's low. The Sensex eventually ended with a smart gain of 227 points at 18,438.
Today’s recovery comes as a relief after last Friday’s fall of 295 points, wherein the Sensex closed at 18,212.
The Nifty moved up 60 points to settle at 5,519.
Deepak Singh Tanwar, Sound Equity & Consulting, while commenting on the market said, “As long as the 5,350 level is not broken, the outlook for the market should be considered positive. On the upper side, the Nifty has resistance around 5,600.”
A consensus on the 2G scam JPC, along with a robust GDP projection of nearly 9% for the next fiscal by C Rangarajan, Chairman of the PM’s Economic Advisory Council, buoyed investor sentiment, with markets recouping early morning losses.
Gainers on the Sensex were TCS at Rs 1,137 and Wipro at Rs 450, both up by a handsome 4%, while Sterlite Industries at Rs 166 gained 3%.
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Auto stocks, however, were the major losers on the BSE benchmark today; Tata Motors at Rs 1,162 was down 3%, Hero Honda at Rs 1,439 slipped 2% and Maruti Suzuki closed down 1% at Rs 1,213.
The IT index led the sectoral pack at 6,400 up nearly 3%, followed by the Consumer Durables index at 5,832 and the Oil & Gas index at 9,499, both up 2%.
Major gainers in the IT space were Mphasis at Rs 681, TCS at Rs 1,137 and Wipro at Rs 450, all up 4%.
Mid-cap and small-cap stocks underperformed the benchmark stocks. The Mid-cap index closed at 6,659, while the Small-cap ended at 8,121, both flat with a negative bias.
The Indian equity markets, are down 11% so far this year, and amongst the worst performing market after Egypt, saw an outflow of $1.65 billion on the back of unhealthy political headwinds, and a deepening telecom spectrum scam.
The BSE Capital Goods, Consumer Durables and FMCG indices were amongst the top sectoral performers, while the Auto index languished at the bottom of the sectoral chart.
On the volatile market scenario, Samir Arora, Helios Capital, said, "I do not know how much will the upside be, but basically it cannot be the pace that the rest of the world is rallying and we are down 15-18%. What we saw two weeks ago, this kind of disjoint between the two markets like US and India will not be seen."
The market breadth was negative, with 1,395 advances, versus 1,465 declines.