Helped by Reliance, markets close the week near all time highs

Rex Mathew
18 June 2005

Monday morning, markets opened the week on a cautious note on monsoon worries. The rains stopped their progress to north after covering the southern states, leaving most of central and northern parts reeling under severe heat. The worries did not last very long either as the markets recovered on fresh buying. Led by ICICI Bank, the indices surged ahead later in the day to close strongly.

Tuesday was almost a repeat of Monday with the indices opening weak only to recover and close strongly late in the afternoon. ICICI Bank continued its rally and was joined by Bharti Tele.

Markets maintained a steady up trend for most of Wednesday as the indices continued their march towards the all time highs posted in March of this year. After a gap of a few months, the Sensex managed to close above 6900 levels and the Nifty above 2120.

Indices turned weak on Thursday after profit booking in frontline stocks prevented the markets from building up on early gains.

Friday was the day of Reliance Industries as rumours of a settlement between the brothers over the weekend helped the stock to surge almost 2 per cent. This helped the markets to recover from early losses and close the week above important levels of 6900 and 2120 for the Sensex and Nifty respectively.

After under performing, the frontline indices for the first three days of the week, mid-caps declined substantially on Thursday and Friday. The CNX Mid-cap 200 index lost 3 per cent in two days and closed marginally above the 3000 mark.