With the binging bulls running amok at full steam ahead on Dalal Street, home to country’s premier bourse — Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), hoisting the benchmark 30-scrip Sensex past the 19,000 mark milestone in a record four sessions, as investors bet heavily on blue chip stocks and political truce.

The relentless charge of the bull brigade, which re-emerged after a brief respite on Friday, helped the market barometer add 640 points — the second highest gain for a single-day.
The index, which only crossed 18,000 points for the first time last Tuesday, hit a record of 19,095.75 points during trade.

While it tanked 395 points on Friday after Finance Minister P Chidambaram’s statement that speculators were driving stock prices, market players attributed Monday’s rally also to Friday’s statement by UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that elections were still far away — hinting that differences with Left parties on the Indo-US nuclear deal have been addressed.

The BSE barometer started off on a strong footing and galloped to a new trading peak of 19,095.75 before ending at an all-time high of 19,058.67, posting a gain of 640 points and a net rise 3.47 per cent over Friday’s close. “Market is in a strong bull grip... Has left fundamentals behind and is going forward on macro indicators, including strong IIP numbers, fall in inflation...Everything is positively stacked up,” opined one market player.

Genuine buying
“There has to be some genuine buying at these levels of the market,” observed an analyst, adding “it is always difficult to predict the top or bottom of a market that has rallied so much.”

S&P CNX Nifty of NSE too flared up by 242.15 points or 4.46 per cent to close at a high of 5,670.40. Foreign institutional investors were also in the driver's seat, and poured in about Rs 8,425 crore (including Friday’s provisional number) during last week. “FIIs are going strong with their investments in the Indian markets and 20,000 could be achieved by the month-end,” another added.  Overseas investors were net buyers for a 15th straight day, taking their total purchases since the Federal Reserve cut rates on September 18 to $7.08 billion. That’s 43 per cent of total purchases made so far this year.

Funds bought a net Rs 9.91 billion ($245.7 million) of shares on October 11, according to Securities & Exchange Board of India. “As long as money pours into our markets, it will continue to reach new highs,” observed a money market player.  The market breadth was extremely strong with 1,899 gainers against 875 losers. The trading volume on the BSE spurted to Rs 10,424.30 crore from Rs 9,602.57 crore on Friday.  Metal shares saw an unprecedented rally, pushing its index by a whopping 1,358.74 points or 9.16 per cent in a single day. The BSE Bankex zoomed by 396.02 points or 4.25 per cent, the PSU Index by 483.09 points or 5.57 per cent and the Capital Goods Index by 505.01 points or 3.04 per cent.

The broad-based BSE-100 index soared by 350.31 points or 3.68 per cent to 9,876.28 from previous close of 9,525.97.

The BSE-200 index and the Dollex-200 were quoted sharply up at 2,320.27 and 982.83 at close compared to last weekend’s close of 2,241.10 and 918.33 respectively. The BSE-500 index jumped 243.41 points to 7,384.19 from last close of 7,140.78 and the  Dollex-30 ended higher at 3,980.96 from 3,721.88.


ANALYSTS’ WARNING BUGLE

Retail investors must be vigilant
Mumbai, pti: With the liquidity rally in markets expected to propel the Sensex well past the 20,000-mark as well in the next few days, market analysts warned that the pace is really worrisome and investors should be really cautious.

“Given the furious pace and unpredictable nature of the market it could take just 20,000 can happen in two-three days,” they said.

The milestone represents strong appetite for Indian stocks and it is a liquidity-led rally, they observed, adding FIIs are going strong with their investments in the Indian markets. Analysts advised retail investors to remain cautious and invest carefully to gain from the soaring markets.  “Retail investors are confused currently, as to how to make an entry in the market, while those who invested in the Future & Options market have suffered heavily in the present rally,” analysts noted. Investors should not act on speculations and invest on strong investments only, they said.