MUMBAI: The combined market capitalisation of all listed companies on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) crossed the Rs100 lakh crore for the first time in its history as the fall in global crude oil prices and increasing expectation about a rate cut by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) triggered another round of fresh buying in the Indian markets. The combined market capitalisation of BSE listed firms touched Rs100.16 lakh crore in the intra-day trade as Sensex raced towards its lifetime high of 28,822.37 on Friday.
However, profit booking at higher levels resulted in Sensex paring some of its early gains. The Sensex finally ended the trading session at 28,693.99, gaining 255.08 points or 0.90 per cent. On the other hand the Nifty scaled above its psychological, 8,600 level mark in the intra-day trade before closing the day at 8,588.25, up 94.05 points or 1.11 per cent.“This reflects the growing confidence of both the domestic as well as global investors in the India’s economic growth. This holds a lot of promise for investors who are betting big on India. It’s only a matter of time that India’s GDP growth would start rising along with the commensurate growth in the market capitalisation,” said Deven Choksey, managing director, K.R. Shares and Stock Brokers. Mr Choksey added that the number of measures taken by the government is inspiring confidence to global investors.
According to the provisional data from the stock exchanges, foreign portfolio investors (FPI) purchased shares worth Rs 935.86 crore. “The global crude oil prices are coming down. The domestic inflation is falling.Among the emerging markets, India is now placed in a better positions compared to others in terms of growth outlook as corporate India’s bottom line is expected to significantly improve in the coming quarters,” said Dinesh Thakkar, chairman and managing director, Angel Broking.
The rally was primarily driven by interest rate sensitive banking and auto sector stocks following hopes that RBI would cut rates in its monetary policy meeting scheduled next week.
The PSU bank stocks were much in demand after junior finance minister Jayant Sinha said that the government is planning to bring down its stake in banks to 52 per cent. While the shares of State Bank of India (SBI) gained 5.10 per cent, the shares of Canara Bank and Punjab National Bank (PNB) soared 7.67 per cent and 7.92 per cent respectively.
Additionally, the fall in global crude oil prices attracted lot of buying interest in oil marketing companies.The shares of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation surged 8.93 per cent while BPCL and IOC climbed 3.58 per cent and 4.42 per cent respectively.
