Mumbai, Jan 31: Regaining most of the ground it lost in the previous session, the BSE Sensex shot up 330 points today to 17,193.55 on buying in heavyweight RIL ahead of share buyback, as well as banking stocks after ICICI posted good earnings and the government move to infuse capital in SBI.
Strong equity markets globally further strengthened buying sentiment.
Banking stocks spurted after the largest private sector lender ICICI Bank posted 20 per cent growth in net profit and shot up 5.87 per cent. Besides, state-owned SBI was up on the government's decision to infuse Rs 7,900 crore capital. The Bankex was the top gainer from the sectoral indices, rising 3.84 per cent.
RIL was the second major contributer to the BSE 30-scrip index and it rose by 2.51 per cent as its share buyback programme that begins tomorrow.
“Gains were seen in RIL's share price as its buyback plan will kick start from tomorrow. Sentiments improved for the banking counter after Centre approved capital infusion of Rs 7,900 crore by way of preferential allotment of shares in SBI,” said Shanu Goel, Research Analyst at Bonanza Portfolio.
Buying momentum picked up during the afternoon session as banking majors ICICI Bank and PNB came out with better-than-expected set of numbers, she said.
Positive Asian markets and strong openings in Europe, on hopes that moves to resolve the euro-zone debt crisis might show results soon aided the uptrend, analysts said. Realty, auto, metals, refinery and IT sectors were in keen demand on good buying support.
DLF, Tata Motors, Bajaj Auto, HDFC Bank, SBI, HDFC, Hindalco, Tata Steel, Infosys, TCS, Bharti Airtel and ITC also attracted strong buying Sensex opened strong and rallied further to settle at 17,193.55, a net rise of 330.25 points or 1.96 per cent.
Yesterday, it had tumbled 370.68 points or 2.15 per cent. The 50-issue NSE index Nifty also rebounded 111.95 points or 2.20 per cent to 5,199.25.
Asian markets closed with gains of up to 1.48 per cent after Japanese industrial production showed jump for December. In Europe, indicies in the UK, France and Germany were up by around a per cent.
FIIs, which have been buying Indian equities, offloaded stocks worth Rs 79.60 crore yesterday as per Sebi data.
They have invested Rs 9,073.10 crore this year till January 25. Overall, 25 of 30 Sensex scrips made gains. Hindalco shot up 6.65 per cent, followed by DLF (5.29 pc), Tata Motors (4.06 pc), Bajaj Auto (3.58 pc), SBI (3.53 pc), Sun Pharma (2.56 pc), HDFC Bank (2.47 pc), Sterlite (2.39 pc), BHEL (2.20 pc), Hero MotoCo (2.18 pc), Jindal Steel (2.05 pc), Bharti Airtel (1.97 pc), Tata Steel (1.93 pc), TCS (1.89 pc), Cipla (1.88 pc), Infosys (1.38 pc), ITC (1.19 pc) and HDFC (1.18 pc). Among sectoral indices, BSE-Realty shot up 3.51 pc, Auto - 2.37 pc, Metals - 2.24 pc, Teck - 1.85 pc, Oil&Gas - 1.73 pc and IT - 1.56 pc.
The market breadth at the BSE turned positive as 1,804 stocks closed in the green, as against 1,034 that finished with losses. The total turnover rose to Rs 2,806.50 crore from Rs 2,475.02 crore yesterday.
