ONGC and Reliance help markets to bounce back

29 June 2005

After yesterday's huge fall, the markets had a very volatile opening today. Markets opened marginally in the positive, dropped dramatically and bounced back equally fast in early trades. Global cues were positive with crude dropping substantially and the US markets bouncing back.

The indices traded with gains of close to one quarter of a per cent till mid-morning when they started drifting down. By noon they had dropped back into negative territory.

Fresh buying and more short covering ahead of tomorrow's derivatives settlement helped the indices to start an up trend early in the afternoon which lasted till closing. Volumes were also very healthy, maintaining the trend of last one week or so.

The rebound was led by super heavyweights ONGC and Reliance Industries, both gaining around 2 per cent each.

Sensex closed at 7120, up 71 points and the Nifty at 2192, a gain of 22 points from yesterday's close. Nifty June futures, expiring tomorrow, closed the day at a premium to the spot index. July Nifty futures are quoting at a discount of 19 points to the spot index.
Among Nifty stocks, Sun Pharma, VSNL and Tata Motors were the major percentage gainers while Grasim, Tata Chemicals and Maruti were the major losers.

US markets rallied smartly after 6 sessions of losses despite the uncertainty about future short term interest rate views from US Fed meeting scheduled tomorrow. The markets were helped by the huge drop in crude oil prices and the jump in consumer confidence index. Both Dow and NASDAQ closed with gains of over a per cent each.