Sensex ends Tuesday’s trade one percent higher

Mumbai  : A benchmark index of the Indian equities markets closed Tuesday’s trade over one percent up and touched its highest level in the last three months.

Trading sentiments were buoyed by positive international cues on the back of gains made by Japan’s Nikkei which closed 3.55 percent higher and a renewed buying spree by foreign institutional investors (FIIs).

Stocks like bank, healthcare and fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) rallied. However, metal, consumer durables and information technology (IT) stocks plummetted.

The 30-scrip sensitive index (Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which opened in the positive at 19,697.33 points, closed the day’s trade at 19,888.95 points in the afternoon session, up 215.31 points or 1.09 percent from its previous day close at 19,673.64 points.

The Sensex closed at 19,894.98 points on Jan 31.

In Tuesday’s trade, Sensex touched a high of 19,917.88 points and low of 19,697.33 points intra-day.

The wider 50-scrip S&P CNX Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) closed the day’s trade 1.21 percent or 72.50 points up at 6,043.55 points.

There was healthy buying in stocks like banks, FMCG, automobile, capital goods and healthcare.

The BSE bank index ended 254.70 points, while the FMCG index closed 130.73 points higher, followed by automobile index, up 123.49 points, capital goods index, up 89.42 points, and the healthcare index, up 77.25 points.

Of the 30 sensitive stocks on the BSE, 25 closed the day in positive territory. These included Hero MotoCorp, up 3.65 percent at Rs.1,707.40; Bharti Airtel, up 3.14 percent at Rs.330.05; ITC, up 2.73 percent at Rs.335.20; Tata Motors, up 2.58 percent at Rs.298.55; and Jindal Steel, up 2.23 percent at Rs.333.

The major Sensex losers were: Coal India, down 1.73 percent at Rs.310; Wipro, down 1.50 percent at Rs.351.70; Mahindra and Mahindra, down 0.61 percent at Rs.959; Maruti Suzuki, down 0.07 percent at Rs.1,691.85; and Tata Power, down 0.05 percent at Rs.94.0.

Among other Asian markets, Japan’s Nikkei closed 3.55 percent higher, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng went down by 0.58 percent. China’s Shanghai Composite Index closed higher by 0.20 percent.

At the closing bell here, Britain’s FTSE 100 was trading 0.39 percent up and so was German DAX, up 0.87 percent. The French CAC 40 was also ruling up 0.64 percent.

Photo  : AFP