Nifty soars by 146 points on frantic buying

Mumbai, Feb 14 (PTI) Frantic buying spree on the''Valentine''s Day'' pushed the benchmark S&P CNX Nifty to surgeby 146 points at the National Stock Exchange (NSE) here today.

Today''s rally was mainly substantiated by global stockmarket buoyancy after the Egyptian crisis faded amid easingcrude oil prices.

The 50-share index touched an intraday high of 5,463.80before ending at 5,456.00, up 146.00 points, or 2.75 per cent,over its previous close.

The market opened on a highly positive note extendingover Friday''s impressive pull-back rally with very muchsupportive global sentiment. The key index gained momentumwith across the board low level buying, amid hecticshort-covering while consolidating all gains till thesession-end.

Though the momentum was across the board, hectic buyingwas witnessed mainly in beaten down interest sensitivecounters taking the lead, along with FMCG, steel, IT, infra,Small and Mid-Cap counters.

"The market looks oversold at this moment, pushing theinvestors to value based buying once again. As of now nothinghas changed at macro level, we can term this as a reliefrally," traders commented.

L&T, JP Associates, Suzlon, Tata Motors, Jindal Steel,BHEL, Kotak Bank, Sesa Goa, Tata Steel and Axis Bank were topgainers from Nifty.

Total turnover in the cash segment declined to Rs12,898.44 crore from Rs 13,776.82 crore last Friday. A totalof 6,970.15 lakh shares changed hands in 62,27,298 trades. Themarket capitalisation stood at Rs 63,34,005 crore.