Bolstered by International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) forecast of the country growing at 5.4 per cent in 2014 and heavy buying for foreign institutional investors (FII), the benchmark Sensex surged to another all time high closing on Wednesday. Sensex rose by 358.89 points to an all time highest closing of 22,702.34. Despite a strong performance from equities, rupee gave up its initial gains and ended the session at Rs 60.14 per dollar, a loss of three paise.
As per market experts, FII investment rose sharply after the IMF forecasted country’s growth in 2014 to be at 5.4 per cent. Experts further added, a strong growth forecast, rupee strengthening and inflation being under control, markets could be in the midst of big rallies in the next couple of months.
This is the biggest gain on intra-day basis for Sensex in the last one month. The best gain previously was on March 7 when Sensex spurted by 405.92 points. An intense fag-end buying by FII pushed the barometer to a fresh record high of 22,740.04 intra-day. The previous all-time high was 22,620.65 logged on April 3 this year. The broader index, Nifty also flared up by 101.15 points to end at new peak of 6,796.20 and touched a new all time high of 6,808.70 during the session.
Meanwhile, the domestic currency surrendered all its early gains to end the day three paise lower at Rs 60.14 per dollar due to late demand for the US currency from importers. But forex experts said that the fall in rupee was restricted by persistent capital inflows in record making domestic stocks.
Currency started strong at Rs 59.82 per dollar from previous close of Rs 60.11 per dollar and improved further to a high of Rs 59.80 per dollar with domestic bourses recording smart gains. But emergence of dollar demand after mid-session pulled it down to a low of Rs 60.16 per dollar before settling at Rs 60.14 per dollar, a fall of 3 paise. Strong dollar index also added pressure on the domestic currency. The dollar index was up by 0.02 per cent against a basket of six major global currencies.
On BSE, off the 12 sectoral indices, 10 indices advanced while information technology and technology indices fell by 1.09 per cent and 0.84 per cent respectively. Apart from frontline indices, small cap and mid cap indices also rose by 2.01 per cent and 1.68 per cent respectively.
Bank index was the biggest gainer on BSE and surged by 3.45 per cent followed by metal and healthcare indices as they rose by 2.26 per cent and 2.21 per cent respectively. Buying was also seen in capital goods, real estate, power, and automobile indices as all of them rose by over 1.5 per cent.
On Sensex, off the 30 stocks comprising the index, 26 advanced while only four declined. Sun Pharmaceutical was the biggest gainer on Sensex and surged by 6.91 per cent. Shares of Axis Bank, Tata Motors, ICICI Bank and Hindalco, all rose by over 4 per cent.
Menwwhile, BSE on Wednesday witnessed a brief trading disruption, the second time this week, after it introduced a new trading platform. The leading exchange introduced Bolt Plus, one of the fastest trading platform, on Monday. The new system has a response time of about 200 micro seconds.