Retreating from one-week lows, the BSE benchmark Sensex today soared nearly 333 points on value buying in bluechips like ICICI Bank, TCS and RIL in step with the recovery in the rupee.
After a steep fall of nearly four per cent in the previous session, the Sensex spurted by 332.89 points, or 1.83 per cent to 18,567.55 on funds buying, as investors judged yesterday's sharp fall as excessive.
"Slight recovery of rupee along with appointment of new RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan, boosted the market sentiment. RBI was seeing taking fresh measures to curb currency weakening. Value buying after yesterday's panic selling also helped the market to recover," said Nidhi Saraswat, Senior Research Analyst, Bonanza Portfolio Limited.
The rupee, which fell to intra-day lows of 68.6 levels, was trading at 67.1 levels against dollar on suspected RBI intervention.
On similar lines, the broad-based National Stock Exchange index Nifty jumped up by 106.65 points, or two per cent to 5,448.10 backed by stocks of metal, pharma and auto sectors.
Also, SX40 index, the flagship index of MCX-SX, ended at 10,966.82, up 124.41 or 1.15 per cent.
In order to encourage capital flows, the RBI today eased the external commercial borrowing norms by allowing companies to use funds raised from foreign partners for general corporate purposes.
Among Sensex constituents, Reliance Industries shot up by 2.32 per cent to Rs 849.35 after dropping the most in more than four years yesterday. Infosys rose by 2.37 per cent to a record high of Rs 3,105.90.
Bucking the firming tend, stocks of real estate firms fell after the RBI asked banks to link the disbursal of home loans to their stages of construction.
Sectorally, the BSE metal sector index gained the most by rising 2.75 per cent to 8,023.59, followed by healthcare index by 2.60 per cent to 9,070.30. Auto sector index rose by 2.47 per cent to 10,330.56 and IT index by 2.15 per cent to 8,095.94.
