Sensex hits 3-month high; rises 232 points ahead of RBI meet

The benchmark S&P BSE Sensex today jumped 232 points to close at 3-month high level of 19,735.77 and NSE Nifty breached 6,000-level in early trade as rate- sensitive banking and realty stocks notched up smart gains on hopes of rate cut by RBI in its annual policy tomorrow.
The NSE 50-share Nifty breached 6,000-level after more than three months in early trade before finishing at 5,999.35, showing a gain of 69.15 points, or 1.17 per cent.
IT, Teck and capital goods stocks also ended sharply upon good buying support from foreign funds, helping Sensex to extend gains for the third day in a row.

The bellwether index has gained 449.05 points in the last three days of trade.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in its monetary policy 2013-14 is widely expected to cut interest rates by at least 0.25 per cent.
State Bank of India rose by 1.55 per cent, while HDFC Bank gained 1.47 per cent.

Software exporter TCS at 3.84 per cent was the biggest gainer of the day, followed by M&M at 3.48 per cent, L&T at 2.64 per cent and Infosys at 2.35 per cent.
HDFC, NTPC, Sun Pharma, ITC and Wipro all gained over 1 per cent.
Bharti Airtel which reported nearly 50 per cent decline in its consolidated net profit, ended lower by 0.64 per cent.

However, Hero Motocorp dropped by 1.96 per cent followed by HUL 1.93 per cent.
Among the sectoral indices, BSE-IT rose by 2.55 per cent, BSE-Teck 2.07 per cent, S&P BSE-Capital Goods 1.59 per cent, S&P BSE-Realty 1.48 per cent, S&P BSE-Bankex 1.17 per cent and S&P BSE-Power 1.06 per cent.
The total market breadth turned positive as 1,271 stocks ended in green while 1,117 stocks finished in red. The total turnover dropped to Rs 2,108.92 crore from Rs 4,313.93 crore on Tuesday.
FIIS bought shares worth a net Rs 876.93 crore on Tuesday as per provisional data from the stock exchanges.