Sensex breaks 3-day losing streak; telecom, auto gain

The Sensex snapped three-day losing streak and closed on a higher note led by telecom, auto (the most beaten down sector), select power, banking, pharma and metal stocks. However, selling in ONGC, HDFC, NTPC, ICICI Bank, Cipla, Wipro and BPCL capped the gains to some extent. All the sectoral indices ended in the green.

The equity benchmarks started on a lower note but managed to recover post 10:30 hours IST and traded with positive bias throughout the session barring 10-15 minutes blip around 15 hours IST. The 30-share BSE Sensex closed at 15,074.59, up 64.82 points or 0.43%, after seeing an intraday high of 15,218.65 and low of 14,864.23. The 50-share NSE Nifty touched the 4500 mark during the day, before closing 0.76% or 33.70 points higher at 4471.35.

The most beaten down sector in last three days, Auto witnessed huge buying interest. Respective Index outperformed the other indices and jumped 3%. Bharat Forge shot up 7%. Tata Motors was up 6.81%, as Jaguar-Land Rover secured funding from private banks. It does not need the government guarantee now. The beleaguered auto major was looking at funding of 300-400 million pounds.

Among the others, Ashok Leyland jumped 5.51%. M&M and Maruti Suzuki went up 3-3.55%. Bajaj Auto and Amtek Auto were up 2.8% and 1.9%, respectively.

Ajay Loganadan, Head-Investment Advisory Group at HSBC Private Banking said, "Given the fiscal stimulus policies and the policy measures that have been announced which are largely geared towards the rural sector we believe that that should really offset negative impact of the monsoons. How it is going to impact the consumption is what we have really got to see but largely we believe that should offset the negative impact of the monsoons and we are still sitting with our GDP estimate of 6.2%." "The markets from a short-term is really depends on liquidity, global news flow and what kind of fund flow we see coming into India," he added.

Rajat K Bose of rajatkbose.com said today was the first day of the recovery, so volumes were not there. "Volumes would come once 4,516-4,520 range is crossed but bulls will get back the initiative only after 4,585 is crossed."