The European Central Bank’s move to boost liquidity in its banking system on Thursday coupled with a rally in US markets for three consecutive days saw the Nifty and the Sensex open with a huge gap up on Friday.
The Nifty opened at 4,883.65, up 132.35 points, while the Sensex opened at 16,222.49, up 430 points.
The villains of the last few trading sessions turned heroes as interest rate sensitive sectors such as banks, metals, infrastructure and auto opened with a large upside. The advance decline ratio of the Sensex was 30: 0 and that of the Nifty was 49:1; BPCL being the lone loser.
At 11.20 a.m., the 30-share BSE index Sensex was trading higher by 451.39 points or 2.86 per cent at 16,243.80 and the 50-share NSE index Nifty was up 141.80 points or 2.98 per cent at 4,893.10.
Volume toppers during the session were SBI, ICICI Bank, Tata Steel, RIL and Infosys. Major Sensex gainers were Infosys, ICICI Bank, RIL, HDFC Bank, HDFC, L&T, Tata Motors, SBI and ITC. Bharti Airtel was the major Sensex loser.
All the sectoral indices were trading in green. Among them, metal was up 4.38 per cent, bankex 4.25 per cent, realty 3.65 per cent and IT 3.19 per cent. Of the total 2,410 stocks traded, 1,783 advanced, 540 declined and 87 remained unchanged.
Experts said that it was time RBI stopped hiking interest rates as it was hurting India Inc’s global competitiveness.
“High interest outflows are the reason why many companies are not undertaking capital expenditure,” said the head of research of a multinational brokerage. “SMEs are the worst-hit as banks have tightened margin collateral requirements.”
The Indian rupee opened stronger by 12 paise against the US dollar at 49.03 levels.
Nymex crude oil futures was up at $82.85 to a barrel while gold was ruling marginally in the green at $1,664.45 to an ounce.
PTI reports:
Metal stocks surged after the London Metal Exchange, a gauge of six metals, jumped 4.4 per cent yesterday. IT stocks rose on positive economic data from the US, the largest outsourcing market for the Indian IT firms.
Asian stocks rose sharply in early trade, making a broad-based advance on fresh indications that Europe is ramping up efforts to shore up its financial system and prevent another global banking crisis.
The key benchmark indices in Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan were up by between 1.14 per cent and 3.17 per cent.