Market cheers falling food inflation, Nifty rallies 1.18 pc

Mumbai, Feb 17 (PTI) The bourses sidetracked its shortconsolatory phase into an elegant rallying mode, sparked bythe easing food inflation, as the benchmark S&P CNX Niftysurged by 65 points at the National Stock Exchange (NSE) heretoday.

The 50-share index traded between 5,553.00 and 5,463.40before ending at 5,546.45, up by 64.75 point or 1.18 per centover its previous close.

The session began on a sober note with selling pressurein frontline counters, but soon the trend got reversed as themarket showed some signs of recovery on low level buying.

The news of easing food inflation, which fell to 11.05per cent, for the second week in the row generated the muchneeded sentimental relief for the market players along withsome amount of short covering leading the key index to tradeabove the 5,500 mark before finishing trading finished today.

Heavyweights, banking, IT, FMCG, capital goods, infra,pharma and steel counters witnessed smart buying.

"The falling food inflation is surely a relief for themarket as Apex bank would now be in a better position over itsmonetary policy to tackle the inflationary challenges,"traders commented.

IDFC, HDFC Bank, Suzlon, HDFC, Bharti Airtel, L&T, AmbujaCement, Tata Steel, Sun Pharma and Axis Bank were the topgainers from the Nifty. However, GAIL, HCL Tech, Wipro, RPowerand DLF were the losers.

Total turnover in the cash segment rose to Rs 11,790crore from Rs 10,901.70 crore yesterday. A total of 6,739.72lakh shares changed hands in 61,27,403 trades. The marketcapitalisation stood at Rs 64,33,117 crore.