Sensex, Nifty above psychological levels

Market Watch

The benchmark Sensex and Nifty scaled new peaks by closing above the 20K and 6K levels respectively for the first time ever, despite weak global cues.

The market was strong throughout the week on the back of a smart rally in the small-cap and mid-cap shares as investors sought to exploit better investment opportunities. Both the indices touched new peaks on sustained buying.

Frontline stocks were, however, under some pressure with the foreign institutional investors (FIIs) booking profits as valuations appeared to be stretched. Considering the Sensex's slide below the 20K mark on Friday from Thursday's all-time intra-trade high of 20,498.11 and the weakness in global markets, a further correction is not ruled out, according to market players.

The Sensex ended the week at 20,030.83, a net gain of 64.83 points or 0.32 per cent over the previous weekend close of 19,966.

The Nifty hit an all-time high of 6,185.40 before ending the week at 6,047.70 from last weekend's close of 5,974.30, a net rise of 73.40 points or 1.23 per cent.

The US Federal Reserve's decision to reduce the interest rates by 25 basis points helped the market sentiment to some extent athough it was already factored in the prevailing stock prices and the market was expecting a 50 basis point cut, acording to analysts.

The robust growth in the Index of Industrial Production to 11.8 per cent in October from 4.5 per cent a year ago also helped the markets to end in positive terrain.

Pharma, realty, metal and consumer durables attracted good buying support and notched handsome gains, while IT, power and capital good stocks faced heavy profit-selling. Politics loomed large as the CPM General Secretary Prakash Karat, on December 10, threatened mid-term polls if the Congress-led government went ahead with the Indo-US civil nuclear deal.

The trading volumes on the BSE and NSE were relatively low at Rs 44,955 crore and Rs 98,561 crore during the week, compared with last week's turnover of Rs 46,334 crore and Rs 1,03,603 crore respectively.

The broad-based BSE-100 index improved by 143.44 points or 1.33 per cent to end the week at 10,961.24 from the previous week's close of 10,817.80. The BSE-200 index and the Dollex-200 closed the week higher at 2,605.81 and 1,102.09 compared with last weekend's close of 2,560.80 and 1,081.68 respectively.

The BSE-500 index rose by 171.32 to end the week at 8,390.52 from the previous week's close of 8,219.20. The Dollex-30 ended the week at 4,177.64 from 4,158.84 in the previous week.

The CNX Defty firmed up by 88.55 points to close the week at 5,340.30 from 5,251.75 and the Nifty Junior flared up by 344.50 points to conclude the week at 12,289.45 from 11,944.95 last week.