BSE Sensex gallops above 14,000 mark

Mumbai, Sep 19: The Bombay Stock Exchange's benchmark index Sensex rallied for the second consecutive day on Friday, Sep 18 and ended above 14k, ending in green at 14,042.32 on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) with a massive gain of 726.72 points on strong global cues and renewed bull support by Foreign Institutional Investors.

Similarly, the Nifty index of National Stock Exchange (NSE) also closed firm at 4,245.25 with a big gain of 207.10 points from its last close of 4038.15 points. Both the key indices of BSE and NSE have shot up by 779.42 and 237.00 points respectively in the last two days. Brokers said it was a spectacular session for the markets, influenced by strong global cues on hopes that the US government is on way to consider comprehensive plan to rescue financial firms from the debt trap situation and to end the credit crisis, running for more than 10 months.

Even in order to stabilise share prices of financial firms as it was happening by way of more short selling, the US market regulator, SEC has halted short-selling of financial stocks in the US. This halt will apply to 799 financial stocks. After this news, Dow Jones and Nasdaq Futures gained around nearly 2.5 pc.

China scrapped stamp duty on stock purchase and curbed short selling, helping Shanghai to scale up to 10 pc in today's trade followed by Hang Seng with a gain of 9.61 pc at close. The Nikkei was up 3.76 pc, Taiwan 5.82 pc, Kospi 4.55 pc, Straits Times 5.78 pc and Jakarta 5.82 pc, which helped to boost the Indian bourses, brokers pointed out.

Russia's RTS also jumped nearly 20 per cent to 1,266.75 after the massive fall since Monday. It had lost 21 per cent in first three days of the week.

The BSE Sensex turned back above 14,000 mark after touching July lows of 12,558.14 this week. It closed at 14,042.32, a gain of 726.72 points or 5.46 pc. The NSE Nifty Fifty shot up 207.1 points or 5.13 pc, to settle at 4245.25.

Markets rallied on huge volumes yesterday it tried to inch towards Rs 1-lakh crore mark today but failed.

Total turnover traded was at Rs 96462.60 crore. This includes Rs 16,279.49 crore from NSE cash segment, Rs 73,972.36 crore from NSE F &O and balance Rs 6,210.75 crore from BSE Cash segment.

The market breadth was strong on BSE with 1873 shares advancing as compared to 777 that declined. 68 remained unchanged. The total turnover on BSE amounted to Rs 6202 crore.

All major indices on the BSE rallied on sustained heavy bull support by local operators. The BSE OILS &GAS index shot up by Rs 495.53 points and ended positive at 9468.42 points, followed by GC index by 491.57 to 11,740.07 points, METAL index by 343.54 to 10,033.59 points, BANKEX index by 340.25 to 7109.88 points, REALTY index by 340.25 to 4102.64, PSU index by 289.47 to 6637.88, IT index by 229.35 to 3666.75, TECK index by 159.20 to 2874.54, MID CAP index by 149.65 to 5228.78, SML CAP index by 140.56 to 6215.99, POWER index by 124.21 to 2529.79, HC index by 110.28 to 3924.70, FMCG index by 57.88 to 2175.24 and AUTO index by 52.18 to 3958.25 points.

Top heavyweight stocks also flared up with HDFC up sharply by Rs 177.25 to close firm at Rs 2,308.45,followed by Reliance by Rs 119.00 to Rs 2051.85, L&T by Rs 106.25 to Rs 2645.30, BHEL by Rs 101.50 to Rs 1710.70, Infosys Tech by Rs 100.35 to Rs 1623.85, Tata Power by Rs 78.70 to Rs 1027.30, HDFC Bank by Rs 77.20, ONGC by Rs 72.95 to Rs 1072.10, ICICI Bank by Rs 52.25 to Rs 628.10, TCS by Rs 45.90 to Rs 766.00, REL INFRA by Rs 42.85 to Rs 892.45, Bharati Tele by Rs 38.75 to Rs 799.10, Satyam Comp by Rs 35.10 to Rs 370.10, DLF Ltd by Rs 30.80 to Rs 426.90, Tata Steel by Rs 20.25 to Rs 479.60, Wipro by Rs 19.75 to Rs 416.85 and Ranbaxy Lab by Rs 15.90 to Rs 356.85.

UNI