It was a spectacular session for Indian equities; Sensex shot up over 600 points and Nifty jumped 170 points in an intraday trade. Crude played an important role, which strengthened positive feelings among traders. It slipped below USD 106 a barrel during the day, a drop of nearly 8.5% as against previous close. European markets also bounced back sharply after weak opening in initial trade.

Major boost was seen in rate sensitives, infrastructure, oil and technology stocks, which pushed Sensex and Nifty above 15000 and 4500 levels, respectively. All BSE indices ended in green. Sensex closed with a gain of 551.35 or 3.8% at 15,049.86 and Nifty shot up by 155.35 points or 3.57% to settle at 4504. Both indices touched an intraday high of 15,106.15 and 4522.40, a gain of 607.64 points and 173.75 points, respectively.

Laurence Balanco, Asian Technical Research, CLSA believes that the Nifty and the Sensex need to break through the 4600 and 15300 level respectively to resume an uptrend while technical analyst, Rajat Bose says important resistance for Nifty will be at 4,580.

Biggest contributors for this surge were ONGC, Reliance Industries, SBI, DLF, ICICI Bank, L&T, Bharti Airtel, and Reliance Communication.

Crude has hit a low of USD 105.46 a barrel on the NYMEX as Gustav weakened to category 1 storm and does not pose much damage to oil facilities. It was trading at USD 108.13 a barrel, down over USD 7/bbl, at the time of writing market report.

Balanco feels crude might test USD 100 per barrel while UBS says crude will see support at $ 95/bbl if $ 100/bbl breaks.

Hiren Ved, CIO at Alchemy Capital Management said that markets are likely to range between 4200-4800. He said that the cooling off of oil and commodity prices is a big relief. If crude cools to below USD 100 per barrel, Nifty will edge towards 4600-4700, he added. He further said that inflation expectations have come down. Ved remarked that the markets may maintain the present range till mid-2009.

Sharp drop in crude prices is a big surprise for many dealers. Aggressive short covering was seen in rate sensitive sector stocks. Domestic funds were buyers in banking stocks in today's trade.

Amongst frontliners, SBI shot up 7.44%, ICICI Bank 7.34%, DLF 7.14%, ONGC 6.97%, Unitech 6.97% and Jaiprakash Associates 6.83%. However, Cairn India plunged 5.76%, Ranbaxy Labs -1.89% and Tata Motors -1.82%.

Realty Index outperformed other indices, jumped 367.29 points or 7.35% to close at 5,367.27. HDIL, Indiabulls Real, Unitech, DLF and Sobha Developer were up 6-16%.

Banking stocks like Kotak Mahindra, IOB, SBI, ICICI Bank and Union Bank gained 6-9.6%. Bankex shot up 425.17 points or 6.06% to 7,446.52.

Capital Goods Index rose by 439.46 points or 3.7% to 12,303.24 due to buying in Siemens, Jyoti Structure, L&T and BHEL, which were up 3.5-5.5%.

Power stocks also charged up. Reliance Infra, Suzlon Energy, Power Grid Corp, GMR Infra and Tata Power gained 3-6%. Index jumped 3.62% to 2,686.41.

Oil & Gas Index surged 3.48% or 337.38 points to end at 10,025.96. HPCL, IOC and ONGC shot up 7-12%. BPCL gained 6% and
Reliance Ind rose 3.41%.

Telecom stocks like Tata Communication, Reliance Communication, TataTeleservices, Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular moved up 2-5%.

IT Index gained 112.76 points or 2.85% at 4,066.93. TCS, Wipro, Infosys, HCL Tech and Satyam rose 2.5-4%.

FMCG Index shot up 1.6% to 2,256.04 due to buying in Dabur India, Rei Agro, HUL, ITC and Tata Tea.

Metal stocks like NALCO, Welspun Guj, Hind Zinc, Jindal Steel and Sterlite Ind ended in red. Index jumped 167.54 points or 1.37% to 12,381.65.

Auto stocks also advanced, which include Amtek Auto, Maruti Suzuki, M&M, Escorts and MRF. Index rose 1.21% at 4,037.57.

Pharma Index gained 0.64% at 4,338.23 as buying was seen in Apollo Hospital, Bilcare, Orchid Chemical, Dr Reddys Labs and Sun Pharma Advanced.

BSE Midcap jumped 95.03 points or 1.66% to settle at 5,837.01 and Small Cap index rose 91 points or 1.32% to 6,982.39. Amongst midcap stocks, Orbit Corporation, India Infoline, Future Capital, Jet Airways, Great Offshore, Deccan Aviation, BGR Energy and Amtek Auto moved up 7-17%.

In the small cap space, Usher Agro, C and C Construction, Sundaram-Clayton, JSW Holdings and ETC Networks were up 8-20%.

Most active shares on the bourses were L&T, SBI, ICICI Bank, Reliance Industries, and Reliance Infrastructure.

Market breadth was in favour of advances; about 1779 shares have advanced while 1115 shares declined. Nearly 279 shares remained unchanged.

Turnover has improved a lot, it stood at Rs 79,448.35 crore. This includes Rs 14,166.52 crore from NSE Cash segment, Rs 8,889.38 crore from NSE F&O and balance Rs 6,392.45 crore from BSE Cash segment.

Asian markets ended mixed. Shanghai fell 0.87%, Nikkei -1.75%, Kospi -0.52%, Taiwan Weighted -1.66% and Jakarta -0.26%. However, Hang Seng gained 0.65% and Straits Times 1.58%.