Sensex back on feet, rebounds over 359 pts on Fed minutes

Market today came back to life from two-month lows as the benchmark BSE Sensex staged a strong recovery by surging over 359 points on a buying pick-up, helped by strong gains in other Asian markets.

The trend firmed up in Asia after US Fed minutes showed that Fed would take care in tightening rates after a likely lift-off in December.

Trading sentiment improved after the government yesterday announced a 3 per cent interest subsidy scheme for exporters running for 5 years, brokers said. The US Federal Reserve meeting minutes sent strong signals of a rate increase in

December, a vote of confidence in the health of the world's largest economy and a boon for the banking sector.

A strong reading in the rupee, up 26 paise (intra-day) against the dollar, drove the gains.
The 30-share Sensex opened firm at 25,640.34 and ended higher by 359.40 points, or 1.41 per cent, at 25,841.92, its biggest single-day gain since October 5. The gauge had lost 381.95 points in the previous session.

Except the healthcare index, all sectoral indices led by consumer durables and IT ended in the positive zone with gains up to 1.93 per cent.

The broad-based NSE Nifty reclaimed the 7,800-level to hit a high of 7,854.90 before settling at 7,842.75, up 110.95 points, or 1.43 per cent.

Major gainers that supported the indices were Bajaj Auto, Vedanta Ltd, HDFC, Infosys and Maruti Suzuki.

Meanwhile, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) sold shares worth a net Rs 768.46 crore yesterday, as per provisional data.