Market rebounds with vengeance

The market showed a big sign of relief after the Federal Reserve cut the interest rates by 75 basis points to hold the US economy from slipping into recession. After battering for two consecutive sessions, the market had a sharp turn-around today helped by strong buying in realty, power, oil, and metal stocks. The bounce-back came after a steep fall of over 4,000 points in the market since the downslide began the last week. Despite resuming 685 points higher over its last close at 17,415, the index faltered under selling pressure and quickly touched the day's low of 16,951. However, the sentiment turned bullish by the afternoon and the Sensex surged 1,267 points or 7.57% to touch the day's high of 17,997. The Sensex finally ended the session with gains of 5.17% or 864 points at 17,594, whereas the Nifty soared by 6.21% or 304 points at 5,203.

However, the market breadth was negative. Of the 2,722 stocks traded on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) 1,401 stocks declined, 1,300 stocks advanced and 21 stocks ended unchanged. All the sectoral indices were back in action and moved up sharply. The BSE Realty Index was the major gainer and rose 11.44%. The BSE Power Index jumped 9.81%, the BSE Oil & Gas Index added 8.73%, the BSE Metal Index gained 6.85% and the BSE PSU Index was up 6.77%.

Several index heavyweights notched up significant gains. Among the major gainers, Reliance Energy flared up 15.94% at Rs1,990, NTPC zoomed 13.73% at Rs224, Satyam Computer shot up by 10.84% at Rs393, TCS flared up 8.48% at Rs867, Reliance Industries vaulted 8.35% at Rs2,555, BHEL advanced 8.09% at Rs2,146, SBI scaled up 7.64% at Rs2,324, Bajaj Auto surged 7.44% at Rs2,215 and Hindalco added 6.95% at Rs161. Other front-line stocks also moved up by 2-6% each. However, Bharti Airtel dropped marginally at Rs847.

Over 3.45 Ispat Industries shares changed hands on the BSE followed by RNRL (3.44 crore shares), Reliance Petroleum (2.12 crore shares), Tata Teleservices (1.53 crore shares) and IFCI (1.49 crore shares).

Valuewise, RNRL clocked a turnover of Rs466 crore followed by Reliance Petroleum (Rs357 crore), Reliance Industries (Rs332 crore), ICICI Bank (Rs256 crore) and Reliance Energy (Rs231 crore)