Sensex up 1.7 pc for the week, Nifty up 1.2 pc

Mumbai, Sept 30: The Bombay Stock Exchange Sensitive Index (Sensex) rose 217.64 points or 1.7 per cent for the week on account of factors like short covering in derivatives ahead of the expiry of September contracts, rollovers in the October derivatives, expectation of strong Q2 results, cheap crude oil price, sustained FII purchases and strong GDP growth data.

The S&P CNX Nifty too rose 44.35 points or 1.2 per cent, to settle at 3,588.40 at the close of the week.

It should be noted, that trading on the bourses was extended by 45 minutes from 25 September due to sun outage till 16:15 IST. The revised trading time is applicable till 9 October 2006.

The sensex lost 63 points on Monday to begin with, however then onwards the upsurge was unrestrained. On Tuesday, the barometer index jumped 147 points riding on gains in banking, auto, IT shares and index heavyweight Reliance Industries. Firm European markets supported the domestic bourses too.

Besides, a moderate surge followed on Thursday and on Friday a smooth rollover from September series to the October series, in the derivative segment, lifted the Sensex 74 points.

In the derivatives segment, the market-wide rollover of September contracts to October was 77 per cent. Rollover in Nifty futures was over 70 per cent.

Bank shares hogged special limelight for the week. The rally was across the board in private sector and state-run banks. Experts believe most PSU banks are expected to come out with strong Q2 results, as they will not be required to make provision for a depreciation in their bond portfolios due to rising bond prices.

Amongst the BSE-30 perfomers, Housing finance major HDFC surged on expectation of continued strong demand for housing loans.

Reliance Industries (RIL) came within a striking distance of its all-time high of Rs 1,195, it had struck in early-May 2006 and Infosys scaled a 52-week high of Rs 1,874.70, in intra-day trade on 28 September 2006. Infosys said it will announce Q2 September 2006 results on 11 October 2006.

FII-inflow for September 2006, to 28 September, aggregated Rs 5,424.70 crore, compared to an inflow of Rs 4,643 crore in August 2006. Mutual funds purchased shares worth a net Rs 1,218 crore, in the month (till 28 September), compared to an inflow of Rs 426 crore in August 2006.

Also, as per the latest economic data, GDP grew 8.9 per cent in the April-June 2006 quarter from a year earlier, boosted by manufacturing and services output. Agriculture which accounts for about 23 per cent of GDP grew at an annual pace of 3.4 per cent in the quarter, compared with 5.5 per cent annual growth in January-March 2006. Manufacturing output, which accounts for nearly 15 per cent of GDP, expanded by an annual 11.3 per cent, faster than the growth rate of 8.9 per cent in January-March.

UNI