Sensex snaps 3-week losing streak during the week

Ignoring RBI’s hard monetary stance, the BSE benchmark Sensex snapped its last 3-week losing streak by surging 359 points in the week due to all-round buying in view of resumption of capital inflows from foreign funds coupled with strong global cues.

Strong global cues due to statements by the German and Italian leaders, promising to do everything to protect the eurozone, kept the market mood upbeat.

The RBI, in its first quarter monetary policy review, kept the key lending (repo) rate as well as cash reserve ratio (CRR) unchanged, while it brought down the Statutory Liquidity Ratio (SLR) - the amount of deposits banks park in government bonds - by one per cent to 23 per cent, effective from August 11.

The BSE sensitive index opened higher at 16,919.14 and shot up further to 17,291.99 before ending the week at 17,197.93, a gain of 358.74 points, or 2.13 per cent.

It had lost by 681.93 points or 3.89 per cent in the last three weeks.

The NSE 50-share Nifty also shot up by 115.85 points or 2.27 per cent to 5,215.70. It too had fallen by 217.10 points or 4.08 per cent during the last three weeks.

Buying was so strong that all indices closed with sharp gains between 0.08 per cent and 4.97 per cent with power, capital goods, realty, refinery, IT, FMCG and PSU counters taking the lead.

Buying was also seen in second-line stocks, an indication of return of retail investors, with the BSE-Midcap and BSE-Smallcap indices outperforming the Sensex with a rise of 3.14 per cent and 2.96 per cent, respectively.

IT stocks were mostly higher on weak rupee. The rupee again breached the 56-mark against the US dollar to hit a fresh one-week low. A weak rupee boosts revenues of IT firms in rupee terms.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) made substantial purchases of shares during the week as per the SEBI’s data.

From the 30-share Sensex pack, 24 stocks finished with gains while remaining six declined.

Major gainers: NTPC shot up by 8.66 per cent, followed by BHEL (7.88 per cent), Cipla (7.17 per cent), L&T (4.72 per cent), Sunpharma (4.71 per cent), Tata Motors (3.81 per cent), Wipro (3.81 per cent), HDFC (3.77 per cent), GAIL (3.50 per cent), SBI (3.31 per cent) and Reliance Ind (3.12 per cent).

However, Bharti Airtel dropped by 3.44 per cent followed by Coal India (2.76 per cent) and Hero Motocorp (2.39 per cent).

Among the major indices, the BSE-Power shot up by 4.97 per cent followed by the BSE-Capital Goods (4.70 per cent), the BSE-Realty (4.38 per cent), the BSE-Healthcare (4.28 per cent), the BSE-Oil&Gas (2.47 per cent), the BSE-IT (2.44 per cent), the BSE-FMCG (2.08 per cent) and the BSE- PSU (2.00 per cent).

The total turnover at BSE and NSE dropped to Rs 9,365.61 crore and Rs 45,317.41 crore, respectively, from the last weekend’s level of Rs 9,961.41 crore and Rs 49,129.43 crore.

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