Sensex rebounds from 7-mth lows; HDFC, Infy drive 188-pt gain

Helped by heavy buying in last two hours of trade, the BSE benchmark Sensex today bounced back from seven-month low levels to close 188 points up snapping a five-day losing streak on robust gains in HDFC, Infosys, TCS and ICICI Bank shares.
Tracking overnight gains in US market, the 30-share Sensex opened with gain of over 100 points but lost momentum slowly as selling picked up pace.
However, heavy buying in bluechips in the last two hours of trading tracking firm opening in Europe helped Sensex close at 18,414.45, a rise of 187.97 points or 1.03 per cent.
Today's gain helped the index snap a five-session losing trend where it had tumbled by 814.47 points of 4.28 per cent.

Similarly, the NSE 50-share Nifty also shot up by 63.60 points or 1.16 per cent to 5,558.70. According to HDFC Securities, Nifty was "oversold" in the short term and there was a "bounce due".
IT, Banking, Capital Goods and Realty counters attracted buying. Brokers said investors felt the recent fall in share prices was overdone and picked up fundamentally strong stocks available at existing lower levels.

They said the market received further support on firming trend in Asian and European markets as Chinese imports beat forecasts and investors awaited the minutes of last month's US Federal Reserve meeting.
Overall, investor wealth surged by Rs 50,000 crore as FIIs pumped in fresh funds after selling stocks worth Rs 1,700 crore in the last few sessions, traders said.

In 30-share Sensex pack, 21 stocks gained led by Infosys, Reliance Industries, State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, HDFC Ltd, L&T, Bajaj Auto, Bharti Airtel and Cipla.
IT stocks spurted before the Infosys quarterly results on April 12, lifting the sectoral index by 2.05 per cent.
Globally, Asian stocks ended higher, pushing the benchmark regional equities gauge higher for the third day.