The Hindu Business Line : Stocks gain on higher advance tax collection

Mumbai, June 17 Investors were back in the market on Tuesday encouraged by reports of a healthy advance tax collection from corporates. A fairly widespread monsoon also drove equity markets up in the positive direction for the second day. The Sensex gained 1.96 per cent, while the Nifty was up 1.74 per cent.

“The high advance tax paid by SBI and ICICI Bank gave new life to banking stocks. Moreover, the increase in prime lending rate by 0.5 percentage points by Yes Bank also provided support for the banking sector,” said Mr Alex Mathew, Research-Head, Geojit Financial Services Ltd.

FIIs turned net buyers of equities worth Rs 142.36 crore on Tuesday as per BSE-NSE provisional data. FIIs have been on a selling spree during the past two weeks, off-loading equities worth Rs 7,302.40 crore, according to data from SEBI.

The domestic institutional investors too bought equities worth Rs 420.08 crore.

Sensex closed at 15,696.90, a gain of 301 points – a tad lower from the intra-day peak of 15,732.75. Nifty closed 80.50 points up at 4,653. Sensex has gained more than 500 points in the past two sessions.

All sectoral indices closed in the green. The top gainers were banking and realty stocks that recovered from the steep fall witnessed over the last week, after RBI raised the short-term lending rates. BSE Bankex gained the most, at 4.29 per cent, while the Realty index gained 3.89 per cent .

“Beaten down sectors like banking, infrastructure, realty and capital goods were in good demand today. Due to oversold situation of these sectors, the uptrend is still intact in these sectors,” said Mr Mathew.