Sensex ends 311 points higher; FMCG, financials, telecom lead

Equity benchmarks posted smart rally on Monday led by FMCG, financial, telecom, auto, oil & gas and metal companies' shares. The rally was also aided by positive global cues. The Sensex added more than 300 points in today's session and the Nifty nearly 96 points, which was 20 points away from 6000 mark.

Ambreesh Baliga of Karvy Stock Broking forecasted 5,900-6,000 levels on Nifty in last week but he did not expect it to be so soon. Now he sees the Nifty around 6200 level. "The market is clearly looking up and will continue moving up atleast for a while. So basically after this 6,000 would be crossed, I am looking at levels of around 6,200-6,300." He, however, says there is a lot of caution no doubt, because the drop is going to be sharp.

The Nifty September and October futures already started trading above 6000 level, which closed at 24.65 points and 38.55 points, respectively, as per provisional data. Foreign institutional investors have been lending strong support to the markets; they were net sellers to the tune of more than Rs 13,000 crore in the month of September, which pushed the Sensex higher by 1685 points and the Nifty by 501 points since September 6.

The 30-share BSE Sensex closed at 19,906.10, up 311.35 points or 1.59% and the 50-share NSE Nifty rose 95.50 points or 1.62% to settle at 5,980.45. On the global front, European markets like France's CAC, Germany's DAX and Britain's FTSE were trading 0.65-1.2% higher; US index futures were up 0.5%.

FMCG was the leading space today, which witnessed rally after a long time; index surged 3.5% on the back ITC and HUL, which rose 5% & 4%, respectively.

Financials were quite supportive in second half of trade; HDFC jumped 3.3% and Axis Bank was up 2.7%. HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank went up 1.2-1.9%; SBI, PNB, Kotak Mahindra Bank and IDFC gained 0.3-0.8%. DLF from realty segment rose 3.7%.