Week of the bull run: Sensex gains 2% as IT shares shine

The market continued its north-bound journey for the second straight week, propelling both the key indices, Sensex and Nifty, to new peaks on buying in IT, tech, FMCG and pharma counters on uninterrupted foreign fund inflows and some robust Q1 earnings.

Profit-booking on the last trading day of the week ahead of the expiry of derivatives contracts on July 31 and persisting fears about a spike in oil price due to tension in West Asia and Ukraine weighed on the sentiment as both the indices retreated from their new closing highs. The market closed in the green on four out of the five trading sessions.

Improving macroeconomic indicators, monsoon progress and positive cues from global bourses supported the buoyancy in domestic indices, brokers said. IT shares were in the limelight and at the forefront of the rally on good earnings from tech giants Infosys and TCS, whose numbers exceeded investor expectations, they said.

Positive economic data in the US, the biggest outsourcing market for the Indian IT firms, too, aided the upsurge in these stocks.

The S&P BSE Sensex resumed higher and rallied further to a new intra-day peak of 26,300.17 before losing some ground on the last day to settle at 26,126.75, up 485.19 points, or 1.89 per cent, over the last weekend close.

Last week, the 30-share index had zoomed 617.21 points, or 2.47 per cent. The broad-based 50-issue CNX Nifty of the National Stock Exchange logged its intra-trade historic high of 7,840.95 before finishing the week at 7,790.45, posting a rise of 126.55 points, or 1.65 per cent.

The Sensex has vaulted 24 per cent this year so far, recording the best gains among major global markets, as FIIs have pumped $12 billion in Indian shares till date in 2014.
FIIs injected Rs 1,948.01 crore during the just concluded week, including provisional data of July 25.