Markets surged in late trade; banks, pharma, auto stocks gain

21 July 2008

Markets have surged in late trade on the back of buying in banking, pharma, realty, FMCG, auto, power and major oil stocks. It was cautious till afternoon session and traded with some volatility ahead of vote of confidence tomorrow, which will decide UPAs continuation as a government. However, capital goods and select technology stocks were under selling pressure.

Volumes were very low as investors kept positions low ahead of the political event. Total turnover traded by markets stood at Rs 58,966.97 crore. This includes Rs 10,630.65 crore from NSE Cash segment, Rs 43,942.21 crore from NSE F&O and the balance Rs 4,394.11 crore from BSE Cash segment.

The Sensex has touched an intraday high of 13,878.88 and low of 13,581.19 before closing the day at 13,850.04, up by 214.64 points or 1.57%. Nifty ended with a gain of 67.25 points or 1.64% at 4159.50 after hitting a high/low of 4168.15 and 4072.75, respectively.

Reliance Industries, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, SBI, NTPC, ONGC and Reliance Communication were top contributors in the gain of broader indices.

Rate sensitive sectors like banking, auto and realty continued their sharp run up on first day of week as well as it rallied on last two days of earlier week.  

Bankex outperformed other indices, gained 239.82 points or 3.88% to settle at 6,428.71. Buying was seen in Bank of Baroda, Union Bank, Bank of India, IOB, HDFC Bank, PNB, ICICI Bank and SBI, which went up 3.5%-7%.