MUMBAI: The mood before mahurat trading at the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on Tuesday evening was rather subdued.
Some of those who entered the 28-storey Phiroze Jeejeebhoy Towers, where BSE is located, could be seen reverentially bowing their heads as they entered the building.
Minutes later, their prayers were answered. The start of Samvat 2065 brought smiles back to their faces. The BSE benchmark Sensex closed 498.5 points higher at 9008.1. In percentage terms, the rise was 5.9%.
This is the highest rise of the Sensex on the Diwali mahurat trading day in the last 18 years or since economic liberalisation started.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had started the process of economic liberalisation in July 1991 as the finance minister of the country.
The last highest rise on Diwali day was on October 22, 1992, when Sensex had risen by 52.6 points or 1.8% to close at 2987.20.
Among the mid-cap stocks, the rally was led by IVRCL Infrastructure and Projects Ltd. The stock rose by nearly 30.8% to close at Rs83.5. Stocks like Kalyani Steel and Everest Kanto were the other major gainers.
Among the Sensex stocks, Mahindra and Mahindra led the rally, rising by 12.7% to close at Rs279.45. Other stocks that gained over 10% were Jaiprakash Associates, Hindalco, Tata Motors and Reliance Infrastructure.
ML Soneji, chief operating officer, BSE, said, “The year has not been very kind. Perhaps we shall see light and prosperity after this Diwali.”
Veteran investor GN Hedge of GNH Global Securities, who was present at the mahurat trading, remains optimistic but cautious.
“I have been investing in the markets since 1975 but I have never seen something like this. People speak of the markets being finished but I am not so pessimistic. This kind of talk is normal when the market falls, just as people were talking of the market going up from the 21,000 levels,” he said.
Experts suggest that investors should continue to remain cautious even though stocks are available at attractive valuations, because how the stock market pans out from here in the short term will depend on how the foreign institutional investors behave.
