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Colour returns to Budget-happy bourses in the week of Holi; Sensex up 250 points, Nifty up 73 points

The Sensex of the Bombay Stock Exchange recorded a whopping gain of 249 points during the week ended March 5, as the Reserve Bank of India's various measures further boosted the market sentiment immediately after the market-friendly Budget.

Shares of the infotech, pharma and fast moving consumer goods posted hefty gains during the week on sustained buying spree by the foreign institutional investors. The domestic institutional investors and major market players also made considerable purchases in the fundamentally strong scrips, dealers said.

Barring a minor correction on Thursday, the market witnessed bullish sentiment throughout the week. The banking shares which saw downward trend for a long time, rose sharply following the RBI's announcement regarding cut in bank rate, repo rate and reduction in cash reserve ratio. The profitability would increase in the coming days on the RBI's measures.

Reflecting the bullish trend, the 30-scrip BSE Sensex closed at 3649.06 points, showing a net gain of 249.43 points from the last week's close of 3399.63 points.

The broad-based BSE-100 index shot up by 90.16 points to 1596.11 points from the previous week's close of 1506.95 points. According to market sources, the FIIs have pumped in over $ 25 million in four straight sessions.

According to market analysts, the market is likely to continue the bullish phase for quite some time and they expect the Sensex to touch 3720 on Monday, March 8.

The world markets also saw an uptrend during the week with the Nikkei at Tokyo, Hang Seng at Hongkong and FTSE-100 in London registering handsome gains towards the weekend.

However, market players did not wish to link the uptrend in the world markets with the bullish phase at home; they attributed the sharp gain in pivotals to the various market-friendly measures announced in the Budget and the immediate action by the RBI.

According to market experts, the reduction in prime lending rate by SBI and BoB and other banks will also have a positive impact on the market.

The BSE-200 and Dollex indices closed higher by 18.24 and 7.04 points to 365.93 and 143.25 points from the previous close of 347.69 and 136.24 points respectively.

Total turnover on the BSE reported from four trading sessions was Rs 85.67 billion.

Among the issues, cement giant ACC rose by Rs 96.75 to Rs 1227, Bajaj Auto Rs 28.50 to Rs 537, Hero Honda Rs 75.25 to Rs 785.25, Mahindra and Mahindra Rs 17.60 to Rs 259.60, Bank of Baroda Rs 9.50 to Rs 51.80, Bank of India Rs 4.75 to Rs 24.90, SBI Rs 41.10 to Rs 192.90, ICICI Bank Rs 4.95 to Rs 30.95, ICICI Limited Rs 1.70 to Rs 43.80, Corporation Bank Rs 19.50 to Rs 93.50, BHEL Rs 12.60 to Rs 233, BSES Rs 13 to Rs 149, Cadbury's Rs 51.75 to Rs 634.50, Castrol Rs 33 to Rs 852, Dr Reddy's Rs 107.25 to Rs 720, Glaxo Rs 111.75 to Rs 776 Burroughs Welcome Rs 85 to Rs 980.25, Knoll Pharma Rs 32.25 to Rs 633 Hindustan Lever Rs 185 to Rs 2133.50, Novartis Rs 25 to Rs 980, Ranbaxy Rs 34 to Rs 431.50, Infosys Technologies Rs 250.50 to Rs 3175, ITC Limited Rs 24 to Rs 960, Larsen and Toubro Rs 36.20 to Rs 227.30, NIIT Rs 275 to Rs 2126, Pentafour Software Rs 115.75 to Rs 981.50, Satyam Computers Rs 161.75 to Rs 1155.25, Reliance Rs 12.40 to Rs 152.40, Zee Telefilms shot up by Rs 138 to Rs 853.

The losers were: Hindalco eased by Rs 32.25 to Rs 405, India Hotel Rs 35 to Rs 338.25, IPCL Rs 9.50 to Rs 112, Tata Chemicals Rs 1.10 to Rs 183.20 and Tisco Rs 6.10 to Rs 117.50.

The National Stock Exchange also witnessed uptrend throughout the week barring Thursday.

The S&P CNX Nifty Index shot up by 73.35 points to 1054.45 points from the previous week's close of 981.10 points. The S&P CNX Nifty Junior zoomed up by 133.90 points to 1907.35 points from the last week's close of 1773.45 points.

The S&P CNX Defty closed higher by 60.25 points to 859.25 points as against previous week's close of 799.00 points.

The CNX-500 and CNX-Midcap 200 rose by 40.56 and 27.25 points to 727.96 and 645.43 points from the previous week's close of 687.40 and 618.18 points respectively.

Both the exchanges remained closed on Tuesday on account of "Dhuleti" or Holi, the festival of colours.

Total turnover on the NSE reported during the week stood at Rs 97.86 billion. The BSE recorded total turnover during the week was Rs 82.25 billion.

UNI

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