Weekly: Sensex, Nifty surges ~4.4% each

Indian markets had a splendid week, with the BSE Sensex and the NSE Nifty scaling seven-month peaks besides crossing important milestones. The much-awaited move on fuel price revision did come about with the Government finally hiking diesel prices. LPG subsidy has been capped while excise duty on petrol has been slashed. The Government was also due to take a call on a whole host of reform measures to avert BRICS’ first debt downgrade to ‘junk’. All eyes are on the RBI, which reviews its policy on Monday. With inflation in August spiking, the RBI may not yet cut policy rates. Stocks could fly even higher if the RBI too springs a pleasant surprise. Globally too, things have improved considerably, with Europe, China and now the US unleashing fresh stimulus to boost growth. One bad news for India is the fresh uptick in commodity prices, especially that of crude oil and gold. We also need to see what follow-up policy action the Centre unveils in order to restore investor confidence. For the week, the BSE Sensex and the NSE Nifty ended at 18464 and 5578 respectively adding ~4.4% each. Also Read… Sensex soars on Govt’s reform push…Nifty tops 5550 Sensex top gainers: The top gainers in the Sensex were Hindalco (up 12.6%), Tata Motors (up 11.1%), Tata Steel (up 9.2%), L&T (up 8.9%) and ICICI Bank (up 7.5%). Sensex losers: The top losers in the Sensex were Cipla (down 3.1%), NTPC (down 2.3%), Ranbaxy Labs (down 1.1%), Bharti Airtel (down 0.4%) and BHEL (down 0.1%), The BSE IT Index (up 4%): The top gainers in the IT sector were Infosys (up 5.8%), Mahindra Satyam (up 5.3%), Financial Tech (up 4.9%), Wipro (up 3.6%) and Sasken Communication (up 2.4%). Mphasis lost 1.5% during the week. The BSE Healthcare Index (down 0.4%): The top losers in the Pharma space were Divi Labs (down 3.9%), Cipla (down 3.1%), Piramal Healthcare (down 3%), Glenmark Pharma (down 2.6%) and Pfizer (down 1.3%). The top gainers were Panacea Biotec (up 91.6%), Natco Pharma (up 8.2%), Morepen Labs (up 7.1%), Suven Life Science (up 4%) and Fresenius Kabi (up 3.7%). The BSE Auto Index (up 4.8%):The top gainers in the auto space were Tata Motors (up 11.1%), Eicher Motors (up 8%), Maruti Suzuki (up 4.7%), Ashok Leyland (up 3.5%) and Hero Motocorp (up 3.5%). The BSE Oil & Gas Index (up 4.5%):The top gainers in the oil & gas space were Essar Oil (up 6.5%), Reliance Industries (up 6.3%), Cairn India (up 5.1%), Great Offshore (up 3%) and ONGC (up 2.3%). The top losers were Shiv-Vani Oil (down 2.1%), Jindal Drilling (down 1.1%), Hindustan Oil (down 0.9%), Hindustan Petro (down 0.9%) and Chennai Petroleum (down 0.2%). The Telecom Sector: The top gainers in the telecom space were MTNL (up 7.1%), Idea Cellular (up 6.7%), Tata Communication (up 2.6%), Himachal Futuristic (up 0.9%) and RCom (up 0.9%). The top gainers were Gemini Comm (down 12.3%), WWIL (down 4.5%), TTML (down 1.8%) and Shyam Telecom (down 1.2%). The Realty Sector (up 5.6%):The top gainers in the real estate space were Unitech (up 14.5%), Anant Raj Indus (up 10.6%), DLF (up 6.5%), Ansal Props (up 5.6%) and Mahindra Lifespace (up 4.2%). The Metals sector (up 6.4%):The top gainers in the metals sector were Adhunik Metaliks (up 14.9%), Tata Metaliks (up 13.9%), Ispat Industries (up 9.5%), Tata Steel (up 9.2%) and SAIL (up 8.9%). The top losers were Jindal Stainless (down 5.1%) and Bhuwalka Steel (down 3.9%).