Mkt soars on rate cut, GST hopes

Sensex up 517 pts, Nifty ends above 8,500

Mumbai: The stock markets witnessed fireworks on Friday taking support from bank, auto, IT, Pharma and infra sectors and Sensex reclaiming 28,000 mark and Nifty 8500. The share prices by index heavyweights like ICICI Bank, HDFC, SBI and RIL surge.

Sensex closed higher by 517 points at 28,067 and Nifty up by 162 points at 8,519. Even the broader markets also performed spectacular rallying over 2 per cent, while the market breadth was also over-whelming favaouring bulls.

PSU banks led the rally with an expectation of slew of measures to be announced by Finance Minister including how to tackle bad loans. On the other hand, wholesale price inflation contracted to minus 4.05 per cent due to weak food and fuel prices.

On sectoral front, all sectors closed in the green with banks and auto leading with over 3 per cent and 2 per cent, respectively. Whiles bank stocks raised with PNB gaining over 8 per cent followed by ICICI Bank, HDFC, HDFC Bank, SBI and Kotak Bank added up to 4 per cent.

Also auto stocks have gained with Bajaj Auto, M&M, Hero Motocorp and Maruti by 2 to 3 per cent. From pharma space, Glenmark surged by 7 per cent, while Dr Reddy's fell around 1 per cent. Adani Port also gained over 8 per cent and Infosys fell by 1 per cent.

The gainers: Vedanta, up 3.73 per cent at Rs 107.20; ICICI Bank, up 3.58 per cent at Rs 302.30; SBI, up 3.49 per cent at Rs 268.45; Reliance Industries, up 3.44 per cent at Rs 967.05; and HDFC, up 3.40 per cent at Rs 1,299.80.

The losers: DrReddy's Lab, down 0.75 per cent at Rs 4,258.05 and Infosys, down 0.68 per cent at Rs 1,149.