Sensex crosses 17K; Gains 199 points

Bucking the global trend for a change, Indian bourses closed higher than a per cent ending the week on a positive note.

The Sensex crossed 17,000 levels to close at 17,082.69 (up 198.77 points or 1.18 per cent) while the Nifty closed at 5,132.3 (up 54.45 points or 1.07 per cent).

“Spain has been downgraded and so have some banks in Europe, but it did not have any effect on Indian bourses. The sentiment on the street is also not very positive on China’s third quarter GDP numbers and US industrial production data due on Monday,” said the Head of Research of an Indian brokerage.

Jindal Steel, Wipro, TCS, Bharti Airtel and IDFC were the top five gainers, while Sesa Goa, Tata Steel, DLF, Coal India and Maruti were the top five losers on Friday.

A price spurt in the closing stages of trading lifted the indices but what was surprising was that two automobile stocks inched towards their 52-week high on the NSE today.

Software majors TCS and Wipro drew investor interest ahead of their Q2 numbers and Infy continued to be in demand even after its Q2 results were out.

The biggest gainer in terms of percentage was Jindal Steel and Power that was up by Rs 26.75 or 5.36 per cent to close at Rs 526.

Wipro, which gained Rs 13.90 or 3.98 per cent to close at Rs 363.40 and TCS, which ended higher by Rs 42.30 or 3.87 per cent to close at Rs 1135.05, were the two software counters to benefit from the rally.

Bajaj Auto closed strongly at Rs 1,635, a gain of Rs 48.70 or 3.07 per cent and is within the striking distance of its 52-week high of Rs 1,694.85 on the NSE. M&M was another automobile stock to gain, closing at Rs 806.25, a shade lower than its 52-week high price of Rs 826.70. The stock gained Rs 7.35 today.

Grasim, which gained Rs 54.80 to close at Rs 2,381, Infosys that gained Rs 58.45 to close at Rs 2,755.15 and Reliance Industries that was up by Rs 18.10 to close at Rs 865 were the other significant Nifty gainers.

SBI, which has pulled back from its year’s low of Rs 1,710, closed at Rs 1,883 after crossing over Rs 1,900 levels, a loss of about Rs 4.

Maruti continued to drift lower due to labour tussle at Manesar and was down by Rs 28.75 to close at Rs 1,029.50 and two other metal sector stocks — Tata Steel and Sesa Goa — were also down. In all, while 34 Nifty stocks were up, 16 were down.