The Hindu Business Line : Index heavyweights prop up market

TAKING a cue from the Finance Minster's approach to provide a healthy investment climate, the stock markets maintained the positive trends for the second consecutive day today.

Propelled by sustained buying in index heavyweights such as ICICI Bank, Reliance Energy, Hindalco etc, the BSE Sensex moved up 88.57 points to end at 4923.69. The NSE Nifty gained 27.30 points to end at 1535.20.

Even as anticipation over the outcome of the Finance Minster's meeting with market regulators SEBI, RBI and other market participants today in Mumbai dodged market sentiment, PSU stocks, in particular PSU banking stocks, surged ahead on investment based buying. ONGC, BPCL, IOC, HPCL and most of the other stand-alone refineries closed higher.

ONGC traded firm piggybacking on a further rise in global crude oil prices. Crude touched an all time high of $42.45 a barrel. However, PSU oil refining/marketing stocks such as Indian Oil, Chennai Petroluem, MRPL, Bongaigaon, BPCL, HPCL etc gained ground on reports that these companies would be allowed to hike product prices marginally.

The BSE-PSU index, gained by 3.29 per cent today.

Brokers said that RBI's decision to allow further FII buying in ICICI Bank, which appreciated by almost 10 per cent today, also resulted in the feel good factor percolating to PSU banking stocks.

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