Disinvestment hopes boost market

The key benchmark indices on Friday headed northwards on the back of positive cues from the global market and sentiments in Dalal Street got a further boost after the Finance Secretary Ashok Chawla’s announcement that the Government will introduce seven bills — including divestment, pension & banking — in the parliament to carry out reforms in the financial sectors.

Chawla’s comments that the government’s record marked borrowing programme would not pressure bond yields as well as interest rates further bolstered bullish sentiments. That apart, revival of monsoon rains and initiatives on divestment gave confidence in Dalal Street to both investors who have supported this rally.

Sector-wise, Auto, IT and banking stocks led the rally with HCL Tech, Reliance Infra, Mahindra & Mahindra in the forefront, while the other big gainers were Reliance Capital, Siemens and ICICI Bank to mention a few.

The market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, was strong with cash segment generating a turnover of Rs 6,600 crore, while F&0 segment recording a gain of close to Rs 90,000 crore this day.  What’s more, all the sectoral indices on BSE were in green.

With this, the market this week has virtually undone all the downtrend seen in the last week due to budget despair.

India’s monsoon has revived this month after a dismal start last month, while the weather office forecast envisages widespread rainfall in the next five days in most regions of India.

The undertone now is bullish with analysts foreseeing a turnaround in the economy shortly on the back of the government stimulus packages taking effect and on the other India Inc. Q1 results were encouraging too with L&T and HDFC Bank having reported good results this week.

The popular Sensex at BSE posted a gain of 494.67 points or 3.47 per cent to close at 14,744.92 points.   The bellwether index swung between the day’s low of 75.33 points in early trade to the day’s high of 540.42 points in late trade.

The broader-based S&P CNX Nifty at NSE gained 143.55 points or 3.39 per cent to settle at 4,374.95, after seeing a day’s high of 4,390.40.