Sensex shrugs off worries, up 316 points

A nearly threefold jump in bellwether Infosys' bottom line during the June quarter converted what could have been a jumpy, post-attack session at the stock markets on Wednesday into one of the best days for large-cap stocks.

The first trading day after the Mumbai blasts saw stocks across sectors shrug off worries, at the end of which the 30-stock BSE benchmark gained 315.74 points, and lay just 70 points short of the 11,000-mark it had given up nearly two months ago.

The leaders on the Sensex remained the IT pack, with Infosys ending up with a gain of 7.5 per cent at just Rs 16 below its all-time high of Rs 3,400, and IT services peer TCS, too, jumping 7 per cent.

The BSE IT index was up a whopping 6.3 per cent, the Sensex, nearly 3 per cent, and the 50-stock Nifty was up by 2.6 per cent.

However, with more than 45 per cent of the stocks on the BSE declining, the gains were more modest for the BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap indices, which edged up by just around 0.69 and 0.47 per cent, respectively.

The markets started off on a very volatile note, with the Sensex and the Nifty struggling to remain above board for the first hour.

Once the technology stocks, which had opened the day's trade with a 2-3 per cent positive gap, were able to hold on to their gains, other index heavyweights like Reliance Industries, Hindalco, Maruti, and Larsen and Toubro also got into the act.