Sensex up 236 pts in bull sway

The stock market went up by more than 2 per cent on Thursday, extending its gains for the second straight session, as investors renewed interest in infrastructure and banking stocks, and Asian markets remained firm to a large extent.

The BSE Sensex closed at 10,275.88, a 235.74-point gain, while the NSE Nifty ended 71 points up at 2995.

The index opened the day well in the positive and continued to trade higher right till the end of the session. The bulls started off where they had left yesterday and continued to dominate in the day's trading session.

However, some selling pressure ensued in the final hour of trade, as a section of the market opted to book profits at higher levels.

Vasudeo Joshi, head of institutional equity research, Man Financial, said, "The direction of global interest rates and fund inflows will continue to drive stock markets. We are shifting from a low inflation rate, low interest rate, and an accommodative monetary policy regime to higher inflation, higher interest rate, and a tight monetary policy regime. Unless there is stability on the inflation and interest rate front, the market will remain range-bound and it would not be just one way up."

HDFC, the biggest gainer of the day on BSE, surged 9.83 per cent to Rs 1,121.10 on bargain-hunting. Larsen & Toubro gained 8.29 per cent to close at Rs 2196.30.

Hindalco (4.93 per cent to Rs 171.20), State Bank of India (4.54 per cent to Rs 773.30), Grasim (4.04 per cent to Rs 1852.25), ONGC (3.62 per cent to Rs 1063.6), ICICI Bank (3.56 per cent to Rs 512.35), HDFC Bank (3.12 per cent to Rs 730.85), and Satyam Computer (3 per cent to Rs 684.95) ended with handsome gains.

Jet Airways rose as much as 9 per cent at one point, on news that its deal with Air Sahara was off. Its shares then ended 0.2 per cent down at Rs 704.35.

The turnover on the BSE amounted to Rs 3,263 crore, and the volumes on the NSE amounted to Rs 6,477 crore in the cash segment, and Rs 22,996 crore in the derivatives segment.

As per provisional data on NSE, FIIs sold shares worth net Rs 211 crore on Thursday. Mutual funds had purchased shares worth net Rs 98 crore on Wednesday, after selling for most of the days in June due to redemption pressure.

The overall market breadth was strong on Thursday, as out of 2511 stocks that were traded, 2021 scrips ended higher, 459 ended lower, and 31 remained unchanged from their previous closing levels.