Sensex rebounds 419 pts, Nifty rises 3.15%

New stock weightage method, global cues buoy sentiments.

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Gainers

The Bankex, Capital Goods and IT were among the best performing sectoral indices on BSE

The market breadth was positive as 1,689 scrips advanced and 937 declined

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Our Bureau

Mumbai, June 26 After many days of relentless profit booking that dragged down stocks, the markets rose sharply on Friday as the Nifty introduced the free float method for computation of stock weightage. Positive global cues too provided support.

The Sensex, which in the last two weeks had dipped more than seven per cent, surged 419 points to close at 14764.60, while the broader Nifty was up 3.15 per cent at 4375.5 on Friday.

Institutional investors who track Nifty as their benchmark were forced to add more of those stocks whose weightage has increased following the free float methodology for the index, said Mr Alex Mathew, Head of Research at Geojit BNP Paribas Financial Services.

The index weightage till Thursday was being calculated using the constituent companies’ market caps.

Larsen and Toubro, ICICI Bank and Infosys are among the scrips which stand to gain the most from this switch, said brokers. ICICI Bank was up 8 per cent on the NSE, L&T was up 5.3 per cent and Infosys by 3.8 per cent.

ICICI Bank, Sterlite and L&T were the top gainers on BSE, gaining between five per cent and eight per cent. Sun Pharma, Ranbaxy and Tata Steel lost the most among the Sensex scrips.

“Sentiment in the global markets was rather positive which was reflected in our markets,” said Ms Anita Gandhi, Head of Institutional Business at Arihant Capital Markets.

US markets up

The Dow and the Nasdaq closed up 2.08 per cent on Thursday, the FTSE was up 0.49 per cent at the time of closing of the Indian markets on Friday. The Nikkei rose 0.83 per cent and the Hang Seng 1.78 per cent.

With Friday being the first day of the July series in the Futures and Options segment, investors were taking fresh long positions after Thursday’s expiry of the previous series, said marketmen.

The onset of the monsoon in Mumbai on Friday could have also helped boost sentiment, they said.

The Bankex, Capital Goods and IT were among the best performing sectoral indices on BSE. The only index loser was BSE Health Care.

The market breadth was positive as 1,689 scrips advanced and 937 declined. The BSE Midcap index rose 2.4 per cent and the small cap index 1.89 per cent.

After having been net sellers for nine consecutive trading sessions, FIIs were net buyers of equity on Friday for Rs 551 crore. The DIIs were net buyers for 333.95 crore. link....