The
Nifty made an excellent start to the April series, fanned by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee's clarifications on Participatory Notes effective April 1. "The intention of the government is not to harass genuine investors. Income Tax department will examine taxability of FIIs and would not to go beyond FII issuing P-notes." the FM said. Following this, the BSE benchmark surged 345.59 points or 2.03%, to close at 17,404.20 supported by 28 stocks while the NSE benchmark rose 116.70 points or 2.25% to 5,295.55, after hitting an intraday high of 5,307.10. The market posted first weekly gains in six weeks, ending with moderate gains for the week.
Indian rupee too registered a 55-point appreciation to 50.85 to a dollar, after the Reserve Bank of India bought bonds worth Rs 10,000 crore via open market operations (OMOs), which in turn helped market's sentiment.
Although, market managed to trim losses via gains made in the last quarter of FY 12, but both
Sensex and Nifty finished the year down 9-10% compared to FY 11.
Mehraboon Irani, Nirmal Bang Securities says, since December 2011, the Indian market has been driven only by one factor and that is global liquidity. "But fundamentally we remain on a weak wicket," he asserts.
He expects a pleasant surprise for the market in April. "We will have to watch the global liquidity flows. I believe that can possibly help us having a positive surprise as far as equity market goes because there will be a lot of liquidity around which is yet to be parked. If we have a stimulus coming from US also in June-July, which I think the chances would be 50% right now, we could be having much higher levels," he asserts.
The BSE Bankex, which shot up more than 25% in the current quarter, rose 2.55% today. Country's largest private sector lender ICICI Bank spiked 3.6% while rival State Bank of India was up 1.6% and HDFC Bank up 1.8%. Kotak Mahindra Bank jumped 4%.
The Oil & Gas, Realty, Metal, Auto, IT, Capital Goods and Healthcare indices were up 2-3%.
Index heavyweights and oil & gas producers Reliance Industries and ONGC gained 3.2% and 2.5%, respectively.
Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services, top software services provider moved up 1.5-2.5%. Capital goods majors L&T and BHEL were up 2-3%.
Among metals, shares of Tata Steel, Coal India and Hindalco surged 3-4%. Maruti Suzuki, country's largest car maker rallied 3.76%. However, Jindal Steel and Sun Pharma were only losers, falling 1.24% and 0.23%, respectively.
Oil marketing companies like BPCL and IOC gained 2-3% on hopes that the government may hike petrol prices soon. Shares of HPCL shot up 7%.
About 3.5 shares advanced for every share gaining on the National Stock Exchange. The BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices were up 2% each.
On the global front, European markets too were positive, rising 0.65-1.3%. The
Dow Jones futures gained 55 points.
