The past 4 days have been a roller-coaster ride for the markets. The Sensex swung in a broad range of almost 1,000 points before closing up 1.65 per cent or 262 points at 16,158.28 and the Nifty ended up 1.79 per cent or 84.45 points at 4,796.15.
Taking off from the recent weakness, the markets began the week on a bleak note. The Sensex tumbled 500 points on Tuesday (Monday was a holiday on account of Guru Nanak Jayanti), but rebounded more than 500 points on the very next day on the back of a short-covering rally in the index heavy-weights.
Continuing the pattern of alternate bouts of buying and selling, the markets again bore a hammering on Thursday morning. But the bears had obviously not reckoned with policy unknowns. The government expressed its resolve to simplify the tax structure by implementing the new tax code next year. And more importantly, from the market's perspective, the Centre announced a divestment programme, whereby profitable unlisted PSUs would have to tap the primary markets and their listed publicly owned counterparts would have to ensure public shareholding of atleast 10%. This acted as a tonic for the markets, which recovered around 500 points from their intra-day lows to end up 150 points.
The markets continued their good work on the last day of the week to register 3-figure gains for the second consecutive day.
Food inflation inched up to 13.3 per cent for the week ended October 24 against 12.85 per cent in the previous week. From here on, inflation data of only primary articles and fuel products will be announced on a weekly basis, whereas the overall inflation figures would be known in the middle of the month.
The direct tax collections rose marginally to Rs 20,822 crore in October, compared with Rs 19,708 crore in the corresponding month last year.
The leading Sensex gainers were Bharti Airtel (stronger by 9.5 per cent or Rs 27.75 at Rs 319.90) , Jaiprakash (higher by 8.4 per cent or Rs 17.65 at Rs 227.80), ICICI Bank (up 7.5 per cent or Rs 59.15 at Rs 848.75) and Tata Steel (up 6 per cent or Rs 28.10 at Rs 499.70). M&M and Maruti gained between 5% and 6% each.
Among the laggards, Tata Power shed 5.3 per cent or Rs 71.70 at Rs 1,271, ACC gave up 4.2 per cent or Rs 31.10 at Rs 716.55 and Hindustan Unilever lost 3.5 per cent or Rs 9.95 to close at 273.
