Market brims with energy on gas price hike; Nifty vaults 3%

A huge step forward in long-awaited reforms in energy sector and strengthening rupee amid global buoyancy fired up the Indian bourses as the benchmark CNX Nifty surged by 160 points and retraced the 5,800-mark on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) today.
Financial, energy, pharma, auto, FMCG, metal and infra stocks attracted huge buying and spearheaded the spectacular rally, which helped the index to hit a two-week high.
Buoyant global equities, which rallied for the fourth consecutive session on easing fears over an early withdrawal of quantitative easing measures by the US Federal Reserve, encouraging economic data from Japan and fading of credit crisis in China also provided fillip to the Indian bourses.

A strong recovery in the rupee, which a few days ago hit life-time lows against the dollar, boosted investor confidence.
The Cabinet Committee for Economic Affairs (CCEA) late yesterday approved a steep hike in natural gas price to attract huge foreign investment in oil and gas exploration sector and reduce dependency on costly imported LNG.
The Government needs to revamp power production in order to revive Asia's third-largest economy which grew below 5 per cent in FY13.

The trading began on a firm note and the positive momentum continued for the entire session.
The 50-share Nifty shot up by a massive 159.85 points, or 2.81 per cent, to end at a two-week high of 5,842.20.

Jindal Steel, BHEL, Reliance Infra, BPCL, Tata Power, GAIL, JP Associates, NMDC, Coal India and Bajaj Auto were among the top gainers from the Nifty pack. Among the few losers included HCL Tech, Ranbaxy and HUL.
Turnover in the cash segment rose to Rs 14,659.42 crore from Rs 14,241.57 crore yesterday. A total of 6,827.28 lakh shares changed hands in 69,04,562 trades. The market capitalisation stood at Rs 62,48,442 crore.