Buoyed by the encouraging global cues, the Indian measures touched all-time highs and settled with sizeable gains on the last day of the trading week. The 30-share Sensex of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) settled 342 points higher (up 1.68%) at 20,686.89 after peaking at 20,762.80 points. The broader 50-stock S&P CNX Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) gained 96 points (up 1.55%) at 6,274.30. The Nifty also touched its life-time high of 6,300.05 for a brief period during the day. Both the indices ended the week with a gain of 480 points (2.37%) and 95 points (1.60%) respectively.
Dealers said, the gains in the domestic markets were led by stocks from Capital Goods, Oil & Gas, banking, FMCG and metals sector, ahead of good result season for the third quarter to be unveiled soon. The marginal rise of 5 bps in the rate of inflation for the week ended December 29 at 3.50% compared to previous week also aided the market sentiment. Barring Japan, all the other Asian market were strong, which led to strong opening of the Indian markets, they added.
Among the Asian markets, except Nikkei-225, which opened for the trading for the first time in 2008, ended 4% lower on the fears of impact of US slow down on Japanese exporters. Elsewhere, in Asian emerging markets, the scene was encouraging. Hang Seng was up 2.35%, Shanghai Composite up 0.78% and Seoul Composite was up 0.60%.
Deven Choksey, MD, KR Choksey Securities said, ?The rally in the markets was mainly driven by the heavy-weights based on the expectation of good third quarter results. However in the derivatives segment we saw investors taking short positions. Technically markets look very strong and we may continue to see the rally in the next week as well. We may see some individual stock movements in the oil & gas, capital goods and banking sectors in the next week.?