Sensex crosses 10,000 mark, IT shares back in limelight

MUMBAI: After nearly five weeks, the Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex on Tuesday breached the 10,000 mark towards the end of trading but closed the session a little lower this psychologically important level.

After intermittent bouts of buying and selling, a strong anticipation of a rate cut by the US Fed Reserve in its policy meeting tonight sparked sudden, hectic buying activities which saw bellwether index breaching past the 10,000 mark level after 22 sessions.

The barometer, however, yielded some grounds to settle the day at 9,976.98, still gaining 144.59 points from its previous close.

The Sensex regained the crucial level after rising for three straight sessions in which the index had gained over 331 points.

The broad-based Nifty of the National Stock Exchange also improved by 60.55 points or 2.03 per cent to settle the day above the 3,000 mark level not seen since November 10, 2008.

Expectations of interest rate have fuelled hopes of more capital inflows in near term.

The market moved in a narrow breadth till mid-session as Asian indices were lower in the morning on the back of an overnight fall on the Wall Street. A decline in advance tax payment by some large corporates for the third quarter also dampened the sentiment as the fall is seen as another signal of economic slowdown.

Consumer durables stocks staged an impressive rally with the sectoral index clocking a rise of 7.44 per cent, followed by PSU index which ended up by 5.03 per cent. IT shares which saw a string of losses in the in the past few sessions bounced back to positive terrain by ending higher 2.38 per cent.

Public sector ONGC at a little over six per cent was the biggest gainer of the day among the Sensex stocks.

Grasim Ind at 4.59 per cent, ACC at 4.34 per cent, Tata Motors at 4.33 per cent, HDFC Bank at 4.10 per cent, RIL at 3.64 per cent and NTPC at 3.50 per cent and SBI at 2.80 per cent were other prominent Sensex gainers.

However, Sterlite Ind dropped by 7.07 per cent, HDFC by 4.13 per cent, REL Infra by 2.53 per cent, REL Com by 2.11 per cent, DLF by 1.32 per cent and L&T by 1.23 per cent.

Meanwhile, Asian markets, except Japan's Nikkei, closed in positive terrain on firm European opening boosting the sentiment here.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) turned net buyers with picking up shares worth Rs 230.48 crore on December 15.

All sectorial indices ended with gains between 0.5 per cent and 7.4 per cent.

The total market breadth remained positive as 1,866 counters ended with gains while only 648 finished with losses.

Total trading volume moved down further to Rs 4,149.73 crore from Rs 4,381.42 crore on Monday. RIL continued to be the top traded share with the highest turnover of Rs 401.39 crore followed by HDIL (Rs 191.62 crore), SBI (Rs 163.78 crore), Edu Comp (Rs 150.75 crore) and REL Infra (Rs 131.16 crore).