Markets up, Sensex gains 206 points

MUMBAI: Strong global cues boosted investor sentiment on the Bombay Stock Exchange on Monday and the benchmark Sensex closed the day higher by 206 points, riding on the back of an upsurge in realty, bank and IT stocks.
    
The 30-share BSE barometer closed the day at 15,395.82, a rise of 206.20 points, or 1.36 per cent, over its previous close. The Sensex had opened the day on stronger by 325 points.
    
Similarly, the broader 50-share S&P CNX Nifty of the National Stock Exchange spurted by 55.40 points, or 1.23 per cent, to close at 4,572.50 from its last close.
    
Marketmen said easing global crude oil prices provided the required boost to the global bourses and investors here were prompted to shrug off the fears of Reserve Bank's further tightening the monetary policy to check rising inflation.
    
Asian indices ended up by 0.18 per cent to 2.72 per cent while European markets were trading better in their early trade.
    
Marketmen said there were fears in the market that the Reserve Bank of India might initiate fresh steps, including a hike in lending rates to curb the inflationary pressure.
     
Inflation, which hit a seven-year high of 8.75 per cent for the week ended May 31, has forced the RBI to raise repo rate by 25 basis points last week.
    
They said domestic investors are consistent buyers at the lower levels but Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) showed no interest in the Indian equity.
    
They said easing oil prices from their record highs and strong trend in global markets helped attract fresh buying support from domestic investors.
    
FIIs have sold shares amounting to nearly Rs 23,000 crore so far in the current calendar year.
    
Oil prices fell to 134 dollars a barrel in Asian trade on Monday. They had hit an all-time high of 139.12 on June 6.
    
The recently battered realty and bank sectors were in keen demand and scored huge gains with their indices closing the day higher by 3.54 per cent and 2.83 per cent respectively.
    
IT, power and tech were also higher by over 1 per cent. However, consumer durables and auto were down by 0.59 per cent and 0.14 per cent respectively.
    
Country's largest private sector lender ICICI Bank was the biggest gainer with its shares closing 4.43 per cent up. Cipla, NTPC, Bharti Aitel, Rel Infra were the other major gainers-- in the range of over 2 per cent  t0 nearly 4 per cent -- in the Sensex club.
    
Hindalco with loss of 2.3 per cent was the worst performer of the day. Maruti, SBI, Rel Comm and BHEL also lost.
    
India's second largest telecom services provider Reliance Communication, fell by 1.52 per cent after RIL claimed first right of refusal to buy a controlling stake in it. RCOM is in exclusive talks with South African telecom major MTN.
     
Mukesh Ambani group's flagship firm Reliance Industries rose nearly one per cent.
    
The market breadth was strong with 1,776 gainers against 872 losers on the BSE.
    
The trading volume fell sharply to Rs 4,537.92 crore from Rs 5,847.40 crore on Friday. Anu's Lab clocked the highest turnover of Rs 400.45 crore followed by Chambal fert (Rs 242.78 crore), RIL (Rs 195.40 crore), Reliance Capital (Rs
149.38 crore) and RPL (Rs 117.92 crore).
       
The broad-based BSE-100 Index jumped by 113.62 points or 1.42 per cent to 8,131.23 from its previous close.