Rate cut hopes buoy markets

Mumbai: The stock markets have started on a strong footing on Friday on the first trading day of February F&O series, after a disastrous January besides support from the global rally led by Bank of Japan's negative interest rate policy.

Also, the rupee has firmed up against US dollar to 67.87 in the intra-day as fresh selling of dollar is seen by exporters, apart oil extended rally on the hopes of Russia-OPEC talks to control supplies.

Sensex closed at 24,870, up 401 points, and Nifty ended up 139 points at 7,563. Meanwhile, the broader market also followed the index shares with midcap and smallcap indices closed higher 1 per cent and 2 per cent, respectively.

On the sectoral front, all the sector indices reported in green led by consumer durables gaining over 3 per cent. While oil majors ended higher after global oil prices bounced back with RIL, ONGC and GAIL zoomed up to 2.8 per cent.

PSU stock also made headway with Coal India closed higher 4.7 per cent as the government is preparing a plan to clear the stock, on the other hand NTPC fell 1.5 per cent. Q3 results also impacted the price movement, as Maruti closed flat as the company missed profits as per expectations, while ICICI Bank lost 1.2 per cent as the bank reported just 4 per cent profit after the higher provisioning.

The gainers: Coal India, up 4.73 per cent at Rs 320.05; Hero MotoCorp, up 4.67 per cent at Rs 2,562.80; Sun Pharma, up 4.60 per cent at Rs 873; Hindustan Unilever, up 3.29 per cent at Rs 816.90; and Dr Reddy's Lab, up 3.21 per cent at Rs 3,103.60.

The losers: State Bank of India (SBI), down 2.91 per cent at Rs 179.95; Tata Steel, down 1.71 per cent at Rs 250.05; NTPC, down 1.32 per cent at Rs 142.20; ICICI Bank, down 1.22 per cent at Rs 230.10; and Bharti Airtel, down 0.55 per cent at Rs 289.70.