Sensex closes 109 points up; bank stocks shine

A day after recording one of its steepest falls by 350 points, a benchmark index of Indian equities markets Friday closed the day's trade 109.19 points or 0.42 percent up as bank, capital goods and consumer durables stocks gained.

Healthy buying was also observed in automobile, healthcare and oil and gas sectors. However, brisk selling was sustained in information technology (IT) and technology, media and entertainment (TECK) sectors.

The 30-scrip Sensitive Index (Sensex) of the S&P Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which opened at 25,950 points, closed the day's trade at 26,108.53 points, up 109.19 points or 0.42 percent from the previous day's close at 25,999.34 points.
The Sensex touched a high of 26,248.54 points and a low of 25,910.77 points in the intra-trade.

"Sensex opened modestly up today (Friday) and remained volatile, even dipping in the negative, but strengthened later," said Sanjeev Zarbade, vice president-private client group research, Kotak Securities.

"Sector wise, banking index performed well today. IT index came under selling pressure TCS stock opened sharply lower as the street reacted to the company's outlook which indicated that it may not be able to beat FY14 growth rate of 16.2 percent," he said.

The S&P bank index gained 437.47 points, capital goods index went up by 260.36 points, consumer durables index moved up by 164.98 points, automobile index rose by 117.82 points, healthcare index was higher by 88.09 points and oil and gas index was up 37.93 points.

However, IT index dropped by 422.46 points and TECK index slipped by 155.16 points.

The wider 50-scrip Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) closed trade 31.50 points or 0.41 percent up at 7,779.70 points.

The major Sensex gainers were: BHEL, up 3.40 percent at Rs.226.55; Hero MotoCorp, up 3.05 percent at Rs.2,877.10; HDFC Bank, up 3.04 percent at Rs.885.30; Mahindra and Mahindra (M&M) up 2.88 percent at Rs.1,253.95; and ICICI Bank, up 2.86 percent at Rs.1,505.60.

The losers were: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), down 8.73 percent at Rs.2,444.90; Sesa Sterlite, down 2.76 percent at Rs.232.75; Hindalco Inds, down 2.24 percent at Rs.139.70; Tata Motors, down 1.66 percent at Rs.475.75; and Wipro, down 1.08 percent at Rs.565.80.

Among the Asian markets, Japan's Nikkei closed 1.40 percent down and Shanghai Composite Index was lower by 0.65 percent. However, Hong Kong's Hang Seng was up 0.66 percent.

In Europe, London's FTSE 100 was trading 0.82 percent up, Germany's DAX Index was higher by 1.68 percent and the French CAC 40 Index was ruling up by 1.88 percent at the closing bell here.