Old economy scrips like Reliance, Novartis, Bhel, Nestle, Britannia, Telco, Tisco and Grasim pulled up the Bombay Stock Exchange sensitive index by 105 points to close at 4,189.85.
The pharma major, Novartis, led with a 12 per cent gain to close at Rs 726, followed by HDFC which gained 11.99 per cent to close at Rs 542.10.
However, software majors, like Satyam Computer and Infosys, ended the day with substantial losses due to heavy fund selling. However, select ICE scrips, like Wipro, Zee Telefilms, VSNL and NIIT, reported gains of 8 to 10 per cent.
Fast moving consumer goods companies, like Nestle and Britannia, rode the wave of buying in defensive stocks and notched gains of 8 to 9 per cent. Nestle closed at Rs 396.40, up 8.9 per cent, while Brittania gained 8 per cent to RS 592.40.
Other factors like the lower badla rates over the last weekend, continuous buying by foreign institutional investors in the FMCG and select cyclical stocks and a lower net outstanding position of Rs 1,866.17 crore on the BSE hada favourable impact on the markets. The Sensex opened at 4,082.91 against its previous close of 4,084.71 points and touched a high of 4,222.65 points on speculative-cum-FIIs buying. However selling in heavy-weights like HLL easied most gains and the Sensex ended the day at 4,189.85, a gain of 105.14 points. Prominent losers were Satyam Computer which lost 4.65 per cent to close at Rs 2,080 and HDFC Bank down 2.29 per cent at Rs 224. The market capitalisation as a result surged by Rs 15,765 crore to close at Rs 626,306 crore. The Business Standard ICE Index of convergent economy stocks surged by 2.12 per cent or 3.0 points to close at 144.95. The S&P CNX Nifty also ended the day with a gain of 2.80 per cent or 35.70 points to close at 1,311.40.
In the last three trading sessions, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) continued to emerge heavy buyers at the Indian bourses depsite Indian Rupee touching a new low of Rs 44.85. On Friday too, FIIs bought stocks worth Rs 191.40 crore. In-fact during the last three trading sessions FIIs have been net buyers to the tune of Rs672.20 crore.
