Sensex recovers 864 points

Mumbai (PTI): The stock markets on Wednesday snapped a seven-day losing streak and added 864 points, the third biggest gain in a single day, thanks to a surprise rate cut by the US Federal Reserve.

The BSE barometer had lost 4,097.51 points or 19.67 per cent, in the last seven days.

The trigger hungry markets across the globe stabilised after the Federal Reserve announced an emergency inter-meeting rate cut of 75 basis points yesterday and gave indications that it will lower rates further.

The dramatic turnaround came even as investors worldwide appeared to doubt the efficacy of the measures, including the one announced by US President George W Bush to stimulate the economy with nearly USD 150 billion tax cuts.

The bellwether Sensex moved widely between 17,997.11 and 16,951.03 before ending the day at 17,594.07, a net rise of 864.13 points or 5.17 per cent from last close of 16,729.94.

The broader S&P CNX Nifty of the National Stock Exchange recorded highest ever point-wise rise of 304.10 points or 6.21 per cent to close at 5,203.40 from last close of 4,899.30.

Investors have, however, still not recovered from the mayhem on the bourses since Monday that saw a record 2284-point (12 per cent) fall in the BSE 30-share index.

They were concerned about heavy outflows in the last few days. Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) pulled out over Rs 12,500 crore in five days between January 16 and 22. But, they bought shares worth Rs 7,670 crore in the Futures and Options on Tuesday.

Analysts too welcomed the pullback, saying "markets were clearly in an oversold zone."

They said it was a positive sign for the markets that key indices closed around the 200 day moving average yesterday.

Barring Taiwan, other Asian indices ended sharply higher by about 1.21 to 10.72 per cent while European markets traded lower during early trade.

Meanwhile, market participants expressed cautious optimism and said the global cues will play a crucial role to determine the future direction of the market.

RIL, SBI, BHEL, Grasim, REL and TCS Ltd were major gainers. 29 of 30 index-based stocks closed in the black.

The market breadth, however, was negative with 1,400 losers against 1,301 gainers.

The trading volume was relatively up at Rs 7,133.45 crore from Rs 6,861.32 crore on Tuesday. RNRL topped the list of highest traded securities with a turnover of Rs 466.06 crore followed by RPL (Rs 357.34 crore), RIL (Rs 332.35 crore), ICICI Bank (Rs 256.81 crore) and REL (Rs 231.13 crore).

The broad-based BSE-100 index recouped by 563.16 points to 9,458.80 from previous close of 8,895.64.

The BSE-200 index and the Dollex-200 were quoted sharply higher at 2,236.52 and 941.55 at close compared to last close of 2,099.19 and 880.84 respectively. The BSE-500 Index shot up by 445.81 points to 7,182.93 from 6,737.12 and the Dollex-30 ended remarkably up at 3,652.54 from 3,461.77.