Market scrawls back on growth expectations, Nifty up 40.85 pts

Mumbai, Feb 25 (PTI) Easing crude oil prices andstability in global financial markets finally paid off for theovernight beaten down domestic bourses, as the benchmark CNXNifty recovered moderately to end higher by 41 points at theNational Stock Exchange (NSE).

Pull back in crude oil prices, which slipped below theUSD 100 per barrel mark in the short term mainly helped ineasing geopolitical concerns, halting the mercy-less sell-offin global financial markets.

On the domestic macro economic side, the pre-BudgetEconomic Survey 2010-11 projected the country''s economy togrow by nine per cent in the next fiscal, on the back ofstrong fundamentals, while pegging it at 8.6 per cent for thecurrent fiscal, which helped the market sentiment to improveby some extent.

The 50-share index shuttled between 5,338.20 and 5,232.75before finishing at 5,303.55, a gain of 40.85 points, or 0.78per cent, over its previous close.

The market bounced back sharply in opening trade andexhibited high amount of volatility through tout the session.

The key index shaved off entire gains in mid-afternoon butquickly recovered on the back hectic short-covering amidst lowlevel buying in beaten down banking and FMCG and pharmastocks.

The Railway Budget which was presented today added someboost to infrastructure stocks.

IDFC, Tata Motors, Axis Bank, ICICI Bank, ITC, PNB,Jindal Steel, Sun Pharma, Reliance Capital and Suzlon were thetop gainers from the Nifty.

Total turnover in the cash segment dropped sharply to Rs13,502 crore from Rs 18,305 crore yesterday. A total of6,606.92 lakh shares changed hands in 66,16,799 trades. Themarket capitalisation stood at Rs 61,44,38 crore.