Budget Impact: A terrific Tuesday for the markets

It was a bright day for stocks on the major Indian bourses on Tuesday as the bulls stormed the ring at the start of the session and kept charging ahead right till the end, lifting prices to sharply higher levels and eventually guiding the benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty towards recording their biggest single day gains in almost two years.

A budget that reeled out some positives for capital goods, FMCG, realty, banking and automobile sectors, and more importantly, did not contain any big negative surprises, turned on the bulls and kept them glued to the ring till the very end.

The permission given to FIIs to invest in mutual fund schemes and the decision to increase FII investment limit in corporate bonds also raised hopes of more fund inflows into the country too.

A report that said that the output of six key industries had expanded by 7.1 percent in January, buoyant sales figures from automobile manufacturers and firm global markets provided further ammunition to the bulls to fire on all cylinders.

Text: Balakumar Krishnaswamy Subramanian

Images courtesy: AP