Weak global cues which guided Indian markets to have a gap down opening, were totally ignored in the later part of the trading session on Friday, as genuine buying in the counters of the beaten-down sectors, coupled with some short covering at lower levels helped it to recoup the entire early losses to end the day with sizeable gains.

The 30-share Sensex of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) opened with a negative gap of more than 300 points but finally managed to end the day with handsome gains of 301 points or 2.10% at 14,656.69 points, while the wider S&P CNX Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) gained 80.60 points or 1.86% before closing the day at 4,413.55 points. On a weekly basis, the Sensex managed to gain 381 points or 2.67% while the Nifty has gained 101.7 points or 2.36% for the week.

Reflecting a fall in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), which fell by 1.78% on Thursday, key Asian markets were down by around 2% in the early trading session before closing mixed on Friday.

Anita Gandhi, head institutional business, Arihant Capital Markets said, “The sentiment in the power and capital goods sector was ruling strong on the back of the buzz that the power ministry may see a new minister in the form of Amar Singh, general secretary, Samajwadi Party (SP). There were talks that SP is expected to join the UPA government and will bargain for ministries such as power, urban development, and others. If he becomes power minister, junior Ambani’s Reliance Infra may benefit the most. Singh may carry out required reforms in the sector, which fuelled buying in the capital goods sector. However, we also saw some genuine buying on the domestic institutional front in the beaten-down sectors.”

Amongst the sectoral indices, the BSE Capital Goods (CG) index led the pack, gaining 3.84% followed by the BSE Power index, which was up by 3.40%. Other sectoral indices such as BSE PSU, Bankex and Oil & Gas also posted good returns in the range of 3% to 3.25% on Friday with an exception of BSE Auto & FMCG, which ended the day with marginal losses.

The overall trading volumes at both the stock exchanges on Friday stood at 113.46 crore shares.