Weekly market review: Sensex bounces back 356 pts

The BSE benchmark Sensex recovered by 356 points this week to end at 19,864.85, following rise in IT and metal counters on the back of easy liquidity measures announced by RBI coupled with hectic shortcovering amid higher global advices.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced measures to ease liquidity in the banking system, while keeping the key policy rates unchanged in its mid-quarter policy review.

The RBI said the underlying growth momentum of the Indian economy remains strong and also said that even as inflation has moderated, it remains significantly above comfort level.

Higher advance tax payments for the third quarter by some of the companies also boosted the market sentiment.

Small-cap and mid-cap shares also showed retail investors interest after recent heavy sell-off on suspected manipulation in select scrips.

Wholesale price based inflation for November dipped to 7.48 per cent from 8.58 per cent in the previous month, fading fears of a rise in key interest rates by the apex bank in near term. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said the headline inflation would be around 6 per cent by March 2011.

World markets rose after Beijing refrained from raising interest rates over the weekend. US stock benchmarks extended gains to a third-straight week, following upbeat reports from Oracle Corp and Research in Motion Ltd.

The NSE-50 share nifty also shot up by 91.40 points or 1.56 per cent to 5,948.75 from its level last weekend.

Among the major indices, the BSE-IT shot up by 5.04 per cent, the BSE-Tech by 4.35 per cent, the BSE-Metal by 3.93 per cent, the BSE-CD by 2.41 per cent and the BSE-Oil&Gas by 2.39 per cent.

Small-cap and mid-cap indices were also quoted higher by 232.70 points or 2.60 per cent and 162.04 points or 2.19 per cent respecetively.

India's largest truck maker by sales Tata Motors was the top gainer, up by 8 per cent following rise in global vechile sales.

India's largest steel maker by sales Tata Steel flared up by 6.59 per cent and was the second sensex gainer.

Other gainers from the sensex pack were Reliance Infra (6.07 per cent), TCS (6.05 per cent),Sterlite Ind (4.65 per cent), Infosys Technologies (4.60 per cent), Wipro (4.40 per cent), Hindalco Industries (4.24 per cent), Bharti Airtel (3.82 per cent), HDFC (3.26 per cent), NTPC (2.86 per cent) and Cipla 2.51 per cent.

Index heavyweight Reliance Industries (RIL) rose by 3.14 per cent on reports heavy payment of advance tax.

However, Hero Honda tumbled by 5.88 per cent followed by Mah & Mah by 5.79 per cent, Jindal Steel by 3.55 per cent, Maruti Suzuki by 2.12 per cent,, Bajaj Auto by 2.44 per cent and ITC by 1.23 per cent.

Total turnover of BSE and NSE dropped to Rs 15,859.34 crore and Rs 58,756.78 crore respectively from the last weekend's level of Rs 19,737.90 crore and Rs 76,363.05 crore.