The markets have begun the new week on a spectacular note, thanks to a positive set of cues from the global front.
The Sensex ended at 18,287, higher by 143 points and the Nifty shut shop just shy of the elusive 5500 mark at 5486, up 46 points.
The midcap index ended at 7622, higher by 87 points and the smallcap index ended at 9720, up 136 points.
The indices did open on a tentative note, given the mixed signals from the Asian markets in opening trades.
But the rebound across Asia was just the nudge that our markets required to break the shackles of the past two weeks.
And the firmness on the European Street did the rest; the indices trended up with every passing hour to end at the highs of the day.
On the Asian front, the Hang Seng, Taiwan and Seoul gained between half a percent and one percent each. Nikkei, however, ended lower.
It may be recollected that Wall Street had recovered from intra-day hiccups to end the last trading session on a flat note.
European markets, including CAC, DAX and FTSE, added more than 1% as mining companies gained on the back of firmer metal prices and growing speculation the US Federal Reserve will buy bonds to bolster the sagging economy.
And trading in US index futures indicate that the Dow could gain around 33 points at the opening bell. Wall Street had sharply pared their intra-day losses to end marginally lower on Friday after government data showed a larger-than-expected drop in July payrolls.
Realty continued to hog the limelight for the second consecutive weak. DLF zoomed by 3.9% at Rs 318 to emerge as the leading gainer on the Sensex.
Unitech surged by 6.2% at Rs 90, HDIL gained 4.5% at Rs 277 and Indiabulls Real Estate added 3.5% at Rs 175.
Prakash Agarwal, Realty Analysts from RBS Equities says that most of realty companies had been laggards in terms of price performance in the past 6 to 12 months and are catching up now on the valuation front.
Fundamentally, there has not been much improvement. Volumes, which picked up in FY10, have now stabilized.
Among the other largecap stocks, ICICI Bank gained 3% at Rs 980 and Tata Motors added 2.7% to end at a fresh 2-year high of Rs 918. RCom, ACC and Bharti Airtel were the other significant gainers of the day.
On the other hand, HDFC Bank weakened by 0.6% at Rs 2081, RIL shed 0.6% to end below the four-figure mark at Rs 993 and Cipla lost 0.2% to end at Rs 320.
The market breadth was strong. Out of 3072 stocks traded on the BSE, there were 1958 advancing stocks as against 1002 declines.
