Sensex closes with weekly gain of 793.07 pts

Mumbai, Apr 22: The BSE Sensex crossed the 12,000 mark for the first time on Thursday and closed at 12,030.30 points this week, with a massive gain of 793.07 points as compared to the previous week's close of 11,237.23.

The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Sensitive Index (Sensex) blazed past the 12,000 mark on the back of impressive fourth quarter results of some of the blue chips like Infosys Technologies, Tata Consultancy Service, Gujarat Ambuja Cements, HDFC Bank and ONGC.

The National Stock Exchange (NSE) S&P CNX Nifty index, too, closed 227.55 point up at 3,573.05, as compared to the last close of 3,345.50.

On Monday, impressive fourth quarter (Q4) results by Infosys Technologies, Gujarat Ambuja Cements and HDFC Bank led to 300 points' rally on the Sensex. It closed 302.45 points up at 11,539.68 points, which was the biggest intra-day gain since May 18, 2004.

On Tuesday, party in the equity markets continued with the benchmark index gaining 281 points to close at an all-time high of 11,821.57.

On Wednesday, Sensex reached quite close to the 12,000 mark at 11,986.09 in the intra-day trading, however, it closed at a new all-time high of 11,896 with 74-point gain.

On Thursday, in a never before seen bull run, Sensex crossed the 12,000-mark for the first time, closing at 12,039.55 with a gain of 143.57 points.

The index touched a new all-time high of 12,053.74 points after crossing the 12,000 mark before cooling-off.

Sensex took just 19 trading sessions to travel from 11,000 points to 12,000, which is the fastest 1,000-point gain by the index in its history.

On Friday, stock markets were quite volatile, as the Sensex finally closed flat at 12,030 points with loss of just nine points.

The Sensex was volatile after scaling a new all-time high of 12,102 yesterday and dipped sharply by 241.65 points in the afternoon to a low of 11,860.35 points. However, there was smart recovery as Sensex regained almost all the losses and managed to close above the 12,000 mark.

BSE Metal as well as Oil&Gas indices gained around 10 per cent during the week and were major force behind Sensex's rise above 12,000 mark. Metal majors Tata Steel, Hindalco, SAIL, Hindustan Zinc, NALCO, Essar Steel, gained heavily during the week. Tata Steel closed around 16 per cent up at Rs 654 yesterday as compared to Monday's opening at Rs 565, the scrip touched a high of 667 during the week.

However, it was index heavy Reliance Industries that made huge contribution in Sensex's march towards 12,000 on Thursday, as it almost touched Rs 1,000 mark in intra-day trade going up to Rs 999.95. Reliance finally closed more than 15 per cent up at Rs 974 yesterday as compared to Monday opening at Rs 847.

ONGC was another major gainer of the week despite a moderate profit of around nine per cent, ONGC rose up by more than five per cent from Monday's opening at Rs 1,290 to Rs 1,359 yesterday.

However, the foreign institutional investors(FIIs)didn't join the party and remained on the sidelines. On Monday and Thursday FIIs were net buyers by Rs 477.80 crore but on Tuesday and Wednesday they were net sellers by Rs 475 crore. So FIIs were net buyers by just Rs 2.80 crore during the first four days of the week.

UNI