After trading in the red for around three hours, the market bounced back sharply and ended the session on a buoyant note on Friday thanks to frenzied buying in heavyweight stocks past mid afternoon.
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While a decline on Wall Street overnight on disappointing job reports and the negative trend in Asian markets rendered the mood bearish in morning trade, the positive start on the European bourses and the remarks by the planning commission deputy chairman that the government may not curb inflow of funds from overseas triggered some heavy buying across the board in the last two hours.
The Sensex, which dropped down to a low of 16,635.75 an hour past noon, ended the session at 17,021.85, around 20 points off the day's high, with a strong gain of 236.20 points or 1.41%.
The Nifty index of the National Stock Exchange closed at 5052.45 with a gain of 63.45 points or 1.27%. In intra-day trades, the Nifty touched a low of 4932.80 and a high of 5063.30 today.
Bank stocks moved up sharply during the final hour and mirroring their surge, the Bankex ended stronger by nearly 2%. Oil sector heavyweights Reliance Industries and ONGC rallied smartly. Metal, pharma, information technology and realty stocks too found good support in the last hour. Midcap stocks too rallied sharply.
ACC gained over 4.5%. Hindalco ended stronger by around 3.5%. Jaiprakash Associates, Tata Steel, HDFC, Mahindra & Mahindra, State Bank of India, DLF, HDFC Bank, Reliance Industries, Tata Consultancy Services and Grasim Industries moved up by 2% - 3%.
Sterlite Industries, Sun Pharmaceuticals, ITC, ICICI Bank, Larsen & Toubro, Tata Motors, Reliance Communications, Infosys Technologies, Wipro and NTPC also ended on a firm note.
SAIL, Punjab National Bank, BPCL, Power Grid Corporation, Jindal Steel, Ranbaxy Laboratories, Siemens, Cipla, Ambuja Cements and Idea Cellular were among the gainers from the Nifty index.
Bharti Airtel ended lower by 1.4%. Reliance Infrastructure lost around 0.6%. Maruti Suzuki and BHEL, the other losers in the Sensex, ended marginally down from their previous closing levels.
Reliance Capital ended lower by 2.75%. Suzlon Energy, which opened on a bright note, lost its way after sometime and recorded a loss of 2.45% despite ending off the day's low. Reliance Power and HCL Technologies also closed on a weak note.
Dena Bank vaulted nearly 13% today. UCO Bank ended stronger by nearly 8%. Syndicate Bank also gained close to 8%. Vijaya Bank moved up 7.35%. Bank of Maharashtra and Central Bank of India gained 5.25% and 4.8% respectively.
Allahabad Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Indian Overseas Bank, Canara Bank, IDBI Bank, Yes Bank, Bank of India, Federal Bank, Karnataka Bank, Bank of Baroda, IndusInd Bank, J&K Bank and Indian Bank also signed off on a bright note today. Bank stocks were in demand today on hopes of consolidation in the sector.
The market breadth was positive at close. On BSE, 1452 stocks ended higher. 1240 stocks declined and 98 stocks ended flat.
