Nifty spurts 44 pts on reform optimism; Sun pharma tops

Equities rallied across-the-board today on buying by investors and funds amid renewed optimism over more economic reforms with the benchmark Nifty spurting by 44 points on the National Stock Exchange.
The market sentiment got a boost after Finance Minister P Chidambaram reiterated government's commitment to economic reforms to steer growth and measures to spur muted export growth against the backdrop of widening Current Account Deficit.
After a sluggish start in the absence of any buying support and weak global sentiment, market picked up momentum in the afternoon trade.
There was aggressive buying seen in pharma, energy, finance, metal, technology and infra related stocks helping the key-index to close comfortably above the 5,700 level.

However, auto stocks proved to be spoilsport on the back of disappointing sales numbers and attracted selling.
The 50-share Nifty swung between a high of 5,754.60 and a low of 5,687.15 before ending at 5,748.10, a sharp rise of 43.70 points, or 0.77 per cent, from the last close.

Among the top Nifty gainers, Sun Pharma rallied 4.76 per cent to hit a fresh life-time high of Rs 851.30. Other stocks making gains included Reliance Infra, Sesa Goa, IDFC, Cairn, Jindal Steel, PNB, ONGC, SBIN and JP Associates.
The key losers were Asian Paint, Bajaj Auto, HDFC, Axis Bank, Bharti Airtel, Tata Power, Gail, Ranbaxy, ICICI Bank and Ultracemco.

Turnover in the cash segment rose to Rs 8,821.12 crore from Rs 7,165.88 crore yesterday. A total of 5,890.28 lakh shares changed hands in 53,08,754 trades. Market capitalisation stood at Rs 63,55,689 crore.