Sensex gallops past 19,000...Nifty pierces 5700

The Indian stock market seems to have hit a purple patch these days after being rangebound and choppy for a number of weeks. A fresh bout of buying by the FIIs and ETFs in recent days has played a major role along with the Government's move to introduce a string of reform-centric bills in the parliament. A resilient global trend has only added fuel to the fire.




Today, the key Indian stock indices extended their rally to a sixth straight trading session, with the NSE Nifty finally closing above its 200-DMA. The BSE Sensex also finished above the critical technical level. The advance was led by all-round buying as all the BSE sectoral indices ended in the green zone.

But, sustained buying in Auto, Metals, Telecom, IT and Realty stocks saw the Nifty breach end above the 5,700 mark. However, the Mid-Cap and the Small-Cap stocks remained subdued, dragging down the market breadth into negative territory. Volumes and turnover were also strong ahead of the F&O expiry and year-end portfolio realignments.

The Indian market started off at day’s low amid mixed cues from the international equity markets. However, from there on, the key indices witnessed gradual upswing throughout the day. Every dip was used to rollover in to the next month's F&O series.

"The Indian markets could witness wild gyrations in view of the derivative settlement on Thursday and year-end tax adjustments. On the whole, the undertone for the Indian market is likely to remain upbeat as long as the Nifty sustains above 5650. The next big obstacle is seen around 5800. Also, the lack of participation by the non-index stocks in the current rally is a cause for concern ," says Amar Ambani, Head of Research (India Private Clients) - IIFL.

The BSE Sensex ended at 19,121 gaining 178 points. It had earlier touched a day's high of 19,226 and a day's low of 18,944. It opened at 18,949. While, the NSE Nifty rose 49 points to close at 5,736.

R Com, Sesa Goa, BPCL, Maruti, Dr Reddy, Axis Bank, DLF, Bharti Airtel, Ster, Tata Power, HDFC, Cipla, ONGC, Hero Honda and Rel Infra are the notable gainers, while IDFC, Grasim, BHEL, Rel Capital, Cairn, Ambuja Cement, ICICI Bank, Rel Power, Tata Steel, Reliance and SAIL are the notable losers on the BSE and NSE.

The BSE 500 index gainers of the day are Jai Balaji Inds, D B Realty, Puravankara Projects, Himadri Chemicals and Industries, J&K Bank, Dewan Housing, BASF India, Allcargo Global Logistics, Graphite India, Corporation Bank, Pharma, Deccan Chronicles Holdings, BL Kashyap, Mphasis and Bajaj Finance

However, Shree Global Tradefin, Den Network, Shree Ashtavina, Piramal Health and Karuturi Global are among the losers on the BSE 500 index.

Among the BSE sectoral indices, the BSE Auto index was the top gainer, the index gained 1.7% followed by BSE Teck index adding 1.3%, while, BSE Metal index gained 1.1%. BSE Mid-Cap index and BSE Small-Cap index ended almost unchanged.

The European markets were trading with a slight positive bias, the FTSE index was up 0.2%, CAC index was flat and DAX index was down 0.2%.