Business
Sensex gains more than 190 points; IT stocks rise
Mumbai, April 8
A benchmark index of Indian
equities markets, the 30-scrip Sensitive Index (Sensex) made healthy
gains during Wednesday's trade session rising by more than 190 points
during the day.
The wider 50-scrip Nifty of the National Stock
Exchange (NSE) also made gains during the day's trade. It closed 54.10
points or 0.62 percent up at 8,714.40 points.
The Sensex of the
S&P Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which opened at 28,601.49 points,
closed the day's trade at 28,707.75 points, up 191.16 points or 0.67
percent from the previous day's close at 28,516.59 points.
The Sensex touched a high of 28,763.06 points and a low of 28,566.61 points in the intra-day trade.
On
Tuesday the Indian markets had ended on a flat note after the Reserve
Bank of India (RBI), as expected, maintained status quo in key policy
rates in its first bi monthly Monetary policy review.
The RBI
Governor Raghuram Rajan, who conducted the first bi-monthly review of
the monetary policy for the current fiscal year, decided to retain the
repurchase rate, the reverse repurchase rate, the cash reserve ratio and
the statutory ratio at existing levels.
Charting Wednesday's trade, an analyst said the Indian markets opened on a positive note by tracking global cues.
"Markets
maintained their positive trajectory today (Wednesday) with Sensex
climbing 191 points or 0.67 percent to shut the day at 28,708 level,"
said Vineeta Mahnot, equity research analyst, Hem Securities.
"Pharma
stocks were in focus today as the government has allowed pharmaceutical
companies to hike rates of 509 essential medicines used for treating
various ailments like diabetes, hepatitis and cancer by 3.84 percent
with effect from April 1," Mahnot added.
Apart from S&P BSE
Bank index, all other sector-based indices of the BSE made gains during
the day's trade session. Healthy buying was observed in information
technology (IT), metal, oil and gas, consumer durables, fast moving
consumer goods (FMCG) and automobile sectors.
The S&P BSE IT
index gained 224.45 points, metal index increased by 157.69, oil and gas
index augmented by 146.84 points, consumer durables index rose by
123.21 points, FMCG index was higher by 118.19 and automobile index was
up 108.26 points.
However, bank index slipped by 65.42 points.
The
major Sensex gainers on Wednesday were: Coal India, up 5.73 percent at
Rs.380; Reliance Industries, up 3.93 percent at Rs.865.50; Bharti
Airtel, up 3.63 percent at Rs.419.25; Tata Consultancy Services (TCS),
up 2.25 percent at Rs.2,644.35; and DrReddy's Lab, up 2.10 percent at
Rs.3,755.85.
The losers were: HDFC, down 2.22 percent at
Rs.1,299.15; Sesa Sterlite, down 1.93 percent at Rs.193.55; ONGC, down
1.74 percent at Rs.312.85; Hero MotoCorp, down 1.32 percent at
Rs.2,605.10; and Tata Power, down 0.96 percent at Rs.77.55.
Among
the Asian markets, Japan's Nikkei went up by 0.76 percent while Hong
Kong's Hang Seng closed higher by 3.80 percent. China's Shanghai
Composite Index gained by 0.86 percent.
In Europe, London's FTSE
100 was up by 0.45 percent and France's CAC 40 was marginally higher by
0.02 percent. However, Germany's DAX Index was down 0.34 percent at the
closing in the Indian markets.