Samvat 2068 off to spanking start after Greek bailout

The Hindu New Year on Thursday brought some cheer to the bourses, which gained in line with their Asian counterparts on news of the European Union's bail-out of the Greek economy with a 50 per cent write-off of that troubled economy's debt.

Both the National Stock Exchange's Nifty and the Bombay Stock Exchange's Sensex showed strong gains, with all sector-wise indices in the positive. Metals, banks and auto stocks led the charge.

The NSE Nifty was at 17741.67, up 452.84 points or 2.62 per cent. The 30-share index touched an intraday low of 17671.86 and high of 17908.13. The BSE Sensex surged more than 600 points in opening trade. The BSE midcap index edged up 1.21 per cent, though the BSE smallcap index slipped by 0.97 per cent.

Among sectoral indices, the BSE Metal Index was up 5.02 per cent, the BSE Auto Index gained 3.15 per cent, the BSE Bankex was up 3.14 per cent and the BSE Realty Index was up 2.77 per cent.

Sterlite Industries (8.39 per cent), Hindalco Industries (8.30 per cent), Jaiprakash Associates (6.32 per cent), Tata Motors (6.23 per cent), and Tata Steel (5.87 per cent) were amongst the major Nifty gainers.

Bharat Petroleum (-2.31 per cent) and PowerGrid Corp (-0.29 per cent) were the only losers.