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Sensex, Santa tango: stock markets defy the Law of Year-end Slump

• Sensex -- 4949, up 163 points (3.40 per cent)
• S&P CNX Nifty -- up 57 points (4.00 per cent)

The 30-scrip Bombay Stock Exchange Sensex index skyrocketed by about 163 points or 3.40 per cent and closed at 4948.54 points, 51 points away from the 5000 mark.

Infotech and cement shares staged an impressive rally on heavy buying spree from market players today.

Encouraged by yesterday's smart rally at the Nasdaq, the market opened on a firm note and the indices continued to climb up during the day.

Several stocks including Infosys Technologies, Satyam Computer, ACC, L&T, ITC, Indian Rayon, Indian Hotel, Rolta, Zee Telesystems, Reliance Industries, Telco, Tisco hit the upward circuits, while Gujarat Ambuja, Silverline, Crisil, BHEL and MTNL posted handsome gains on heavy buying spree, dealers said.

The show was similar at the National Stock Exchange, country's another leading bourse, where the S&P CNX Nifty Index shot up by 60 points at 1481.70 points.

Marketmen attributed today's rally to the soaring of Nasdaq by 127 points at 3911 points yesterday. Elaborating, dealers said that infotech stocks made handsome gains on the Nasdaq; the composite index crossed the 3900 mark, amidst volatile trading.

Back home, the 30-share BSE Sensex opened at 4854.89 points which happens to be the day's low of 4854.89 points, touched the day's high of 4951.76 points before closing at 4948.89 points, showing a net gain of 162.53 points from the previous close of 4786.01 points.

The broad-based BSE-100 index also advanced by 65.06 points at 2546.93 points from the previous close of 2481.87 points.

In a significant development on the cement front, Gujarat Ambuja's subsidiary today increased its stake in ACC to 7.2 per cent. Reacting to the announcements, both ACC and Gujarat Ambuja counters witnessed hectic activity as both the scrips shot up by over Rs 25 from their previous close.

Commenting on the bull run, analysts stated that the foreign institutional investors made considerable buying in select infotech and other pivotals. The local players too bought large number of index-based shares today. This is not what analysts forecast earlier. The conventional wisdom was that the markets would take a beating ahead of the new year, due to the Y2K bug fear and big fund managers' Christmas-time holiday.

Total turnover on the BOLT system of the BSE reported during the day was Rs 38.24 billion.

Zee Telefilms topped the list of turnover by registering the highest turnover of Rs 4.65 billion followed by Global Telesystems Rs 3.93 billion, Silverline Rs 2.91 billion, Himachal Futuristic Rs 2.07 billion and Pentafour Software Rs 2.01 billion.

Mirroring the trend, the BSE-200 and Dollex indices closed higher by 12.55 and 4.81 points at 583.35 and 223.27 points from the previous close of 570.80 and 218.46 points respectively.

The BSE-500 index closed higher by 40.42 points to 1768.33 points as against the previous close of 1727.91 points.

Other actively traded counters were Digital Equipment, Reliance, ACC, NIIT, L&T, HCL Infosys, Ranbaxy Labs, ITC and Infosys Technologies.

UNI

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