Bull charges on: Global cues boost Sensex, Nifty

The Indian equity markets ended a volatile trading session with new highs after remaining weak during initial trades. While the Nifty closed with a 41 point gain at 8430.75, the BSE Sensex ended 131 points higher at 28178.

“Weakness in Asian markets and weak Japan GDP numbers kept markets under pressure in the early trading session. However, the markets rose after the government announced trade data numbers for October," market experts said.

The rally was chiefly led by auto, power, refinery and public sector banking shares. Recent macroeconomic data has reaffirmed investors' view that the Indian economy is on track for a smart recovery at a time when Japan has slipped into recession, say traders.

Markets were mainly led higher by public sector banks including State Bank of India which had posted good set of numbers for the second quarter.

Shares of SBI ended over 5.5 per cent higher at Rs 2942 with volumes of 49.16 lakh shares on NSE. other gainers included Bank of Baroda (up 4.36 per cent), Tata Motors (up 4.06 per cent) and Asian Paints (up 2.84 per cent). Major losers on the NSE included Jindal Steel (down 3.19 per cent), DLF (down 2.39 per cent) and Ultratech Cement (down 2.14 per cent).

Advances outpaced declines on NSE with 848 stocks advancing and 692 stocks declining. 48 scrips remained unchanged. Top 5 volume gainers on NSE included Future Market Networks, Star Ferro and Cement, Inventure Growth and Securities, Sambandam Spinning Mills and Pudumjee Industries.

The 50-issue CNX Nifty of the NSE also logged its new intra-trade high of 8,438.10 before ending at new closing high of 8,430.75, showing a rise of 40.85 points or 0.49 per cent.

Meanwhile, Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 645.90 crores last Friday, according to provisional data from the stock exchanges.

Jignesh Chaudhary, Head of Research, Veracity Broking Services said, "In India, local equities added almost half per cent gains with the help of some bluechip companies. FII buying also helped the indices to trade positively."

Among the S&P BSE sectoral indices, Power rose by 1.54 per cent, followed by Auto 1.43 per cent, Consumer Durables 0.91 per cent and Oil&Gas 0.83 per cent while Metal moved down by 0.55 per cent, among others.

In Sensex laggards, ICICI Bank fell by 1.27 per cent, HDFC Bank 1.05 per cent, Coal India 0.95 per cent, Sesa Sterlite 0.92 per cent and M&M 0.67 per cent.