Sensex gives Budget 195 pt salute

The markets were on fire - a day after Finance Minister P Chidambaram presented his Budget. The Sensex finally breached the 10,500-point mark on Wednesday, staging the highest ever post-Budget rally on the back of strong fund-based buying.

The index reached a high of 10,573 points before falling marginally to 10,565 points at close, gaining 195.23 points. The movement was mirrored by the Nifty, which went up to 3,127 points before settling at 3,123.

This translated into a 1.88 per cent gain for the Sensex and a 1.57 per cent jump for the National Stock Exchange index.

The largest post-Budget rally before Wednesday's was in 2000-01 when the Sensex went up by 195.14 points. The third highest (177.12 points) was in 1997-98 when Chidambaram presented what is now known as the "Dream Budget".

"It was largely a neutral Budget, but the most important thing was that it held no nasty surprises... so people were back to their buying ways on Wednesday," said a broker.

While yesterday's fervent buying in the capital goods, automobile and cement stocks continued, technology and metals scrips joined the party on Wednesday.

Only one sectoral index, BSE oil and gas, ended in the red as the Budget failed to bring in a mechanism to put oil companies out of misery in case international crude oil prices continued to surge.

On Tuesday, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) poured in Rs 201 crore, taking the total tally in February to Rs 7,587 crore ($1.69 billion). Mutual funds put in Rs 924 crore in February against Rs 905 crore in January and net sales of Rs 770 crore in December.

Despite the rally, the market breadth was only marginally positive. Of the 2,570 stocks traded, 1,325 moved up, 1,162 slipped and 83 ended unchanged. While 247 stocks hit their upper limits, 162 hit the lower limits.

ACC jumped to a high of Rs 700 and finished with a gain of nearly 9 per cent at Rs 683. Grasim added 4.4 per cent to Rs 1,819 and Gujarat Ambuja spurted nearly 3 per cent to Rs 90.75.

In the auto pack, Maruti was at high speed. It zoomed 7.5 per cent to Rs 885, Bajaj Auto 4.4 per cent to Rs 2,715 while Tata Motors gained nearly 4 per cent at Rs 846.

Among the capital goods stocks, BHEL surged 5 per cent to Rs 2,128 and Larsen & Toubro rose 2.9 per cent to Rs 2,466. In the technology pack, Satyam advanced 4.2 per cent to Rs 801; Infosys and TCS added 2.7 per cent each to Rs 2,906 and Rs 1,740, respectively, and Wipro ended with a gain of 1.5 per cent at Rs 528.

Among other major gainers, Bharti Tele rallied 4.5 per cent to Rs 378 and Hindalco rose nearly 4 per cent to Rs 159.

Reliance Natural Resources began trading at Rs 17.50, which also turned out to be the day's low for the scrip. The stock zoomed to a high of Rs 26 before settling at Rs 18.55.

The total market turnover on Wednesday was at Rs 41,547.49 crore. The BSE cash turnover was Rs 4,397.43 crore and the NSE cash turnover was Rs 9,261 crore. The NSE F&O turnover was Rs 27,889.06 crore (Rs 278.89 billion).

The BSE consumer durables index surged over 4 per cent to 3,200 outperforming other indices. The auto index rallied 3.6 per cent to 5,177 and the metal index rose 2.7 per cent to 7430.

The mid-cap index rallied 1.5 per cent to 4,860 while the small-cap index was up 1.3 per cent at 6,223. The CNX mid-cap index closed up 99.25 points or 2.26% at 4,495.20. It touched an all-time high of 4,504.40 points.