The Sensex zoomed by a whopping 234.04 points to cross the 6400 level on the BSE during the week under review due to heavy buying activity by local funds.The BSE 30-share sensitive index started the week on a firm note at 6183.07 against the previous week's close of 6154.44.Thereafter, it continued to rise sharply and after crossing the 6400 mark to 6404.36, closed at 6388.48, revealing a massive rally of 234.04 points or 3.80% over the previous close.Banking shares were in the limelight with smart rally due to heavy buying activity after government gave approval to two bills that would give the RBI powers to revise SLR and CRR limits of commercial banks. Another encouraging news was RBI raising the ceiling on bank dividend payout ratio to 40% from 33.33%.The rise in index would have been higher had the market not softened by midweek due to reports that the government had called off the sale of controlling stake in 13 public sector companies, which had been cleared by the NDA regime.The other dampening factor in the week was the sharp rise in inflation to 5.91%, higher than the rbi's forecast of 5-5.5%. However, a fag-end rally in cement, auto, refinery and it shares due to heavy buying by local funds, helped the index to close with significant gains.Among other indices, Bankex rallied by 166.38 points to 3670.71, BSE-PSU by 177.72 points to 4170.24, BSE-Oilgas by 151.28 points to 3083.26, BSE-IT by 122.36 points to 2477.52 and BSE-Auto by 94.95 points to 2679.97.Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) reported net purchases in equities worth Rs 70 crore for the first few days of this month with the maximum buying of Rs 123.30 crore on Friday. Meanwhile, domestic mutual funds made net investments in equities worth Rs 367 crore during the same period. The broad-based BSE-100 index rallied by 126.01 points to close the week at 3439.46 from the previous weekend's close of 3313.45.The BSE-200 index and the dollex-200 were quoted sharply higher at 849.77 and 325.69 at the weekend compared to last weekend's close of 821.02 and 313.16.The BSE-500 index rose sharply by 89.99 points to end the week at 2700.49 from preceding weekend's close of 2610.50 and the Dollex-30 ended the week sharply up at 1207.40 from 1157.57 at the last weekend. On the NSE, the S&P CNX Nifty and the S&P CNX Defty firmed up by 75.00 points and 69.95 points to end the week at 1977.50 and 1578.10 as against the last weekend's close of 1902.50 and 1508.15. The CNX Nifty Junior skyrocketed up by 199.40 points to conclude the week at 4223.80 from 4024.40 at the previous weekend.During the week, the volume of business on the BSE and the NSE remained lower at Rs 8699.86 crore and Rs 17902.70 crore compared to the last week's turnover of Rs 9,456 crore and Rs 21,623 crore.
