Mumbai, Feb 18 (IANS) A benchmark index of the Indian equities markets, the 30-scrip Sensitive Index (Sensex), closed Wednesday’s trade 184 points or 0.63 percent up as capital goods stocks surged.
The wider 50-scrip Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) also closed the day’s trade with healthy gains. It ended Wednesday’s trade 59.75 points or 0.68 percent up at 8,869.10 points.
The Sensex of the S&P Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which opened at 29,136.07 points, closed at 29,320.26 points, up 184.38 points or 0.63 percent from the previous day’s close at 29,135.88 points.
The Sensex had touched a high of 29,411.32 points and a low of 29,126.91 points in the intra-day trade.
“The pre-budget rally continues. The budget expectation is very high, (domestic institutional investors) DII’s have come back with positive inflow when FIIs (foreign institutional investors) have turned muted,” said Vinod Nair, head-fundamental research, Geojit BNP Paribas Financial Services.
Healthy buying was observed in capital goods, consumer durables, automobile, information technology and bank sectors. However, metal, oil and gas and realty scrip came under selling pressure.
The S&P BSE capital goods index surged by 227.38 points, consumer durables index rose 188.68 points, automobile index gained 174.82 points, IT index increased by 128.95 points and bank index moved up 105.78 points.
However, metal index declined by 74.57 points, oil and gas index fell 38.21 points and realty index slipped 6.81 points.
The major Sensex gainers were: HDFC, up 2.96 percent at Rs.1,326.20; Tata Power, up 2.50 percent at Rs.86.10; Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), up 1.88 percent at Rs.2,633.90; Tata Motors, up 1.59 percent at Rs.583.10; and Mahindra and Mahindra, up 1.52 percent at Rs.1,226.10.
The losers were: Hero MotoCorp, down 5.09 percent at Rs.2,663.45; Sesa Sterlite, down 3.19 percent at Rs.204.90; Bharti Airtel, down 2.43 percent at Rs.351.80; ONGC, down 2.32 percent at Rs.332.60; and Bajaj Auto, down 0.93 percent at Rs.2,240.65.