Markets rally; O&G, banking, realty, telecom, L&T support

30 January 2009

The benchmark indices witnessed good buying interest in the second half of session after trading weak in the early part of the day and closed sharply higher on the first day of February series. The Nifty stepped back above the 2,850 level while the Sensex ended above the 9,400 level.

Buying in oil & gas, banking, realty, telecom, metal, select auto, capital goods and power stocks helped the markets to stay on higher side. Midcap and smallcap stocks followed the similar trend.

Leading contributors to this rally were Reliance Industries, ONGC, SBI, DLF, Reliance Communication, ITC, L&T, SAIL, Bharti, Maruti, ICICI Bank and Wipro.

The 50-share NSE Nifty has tested an intraday high of 2881 and low of 2774.10, before closing at 2874.80, up 1.8% or 50.85 points over previous close. The 30-share BSE Sensex ended at 9,424.24, up 187.96 points or 2.04%, after hitting a high/low of 9,438.31 and 9,087.36, respectively during the day.

Realty index outperformed other indices; rose 4.32% or 69.09 points, to close at 1,668.08. DLF, Indiabulls Real, Orbit Corporation, HDIL and Unitech were up 3-7.4%.

Buying was also seen in metal sector, Jindal Steel surged 13.71%. Hindalco, SAIL, Sterlite Inds, JSW Steel and Tata Steel went up 0.7-6.5%. BSE Metal Index was up 198.65 points or 4.05% at 5,100.14.