Sensex rises over 200 points to hit 18,000
“The headline inflation numbers for February have come higher-than-expected. Expect the RBI to cut key rates by 1 per cent," said Indranil Pan, chief economist, Kotak Mahindra Bank .
The BSE Sensex hit the psychologically important 18,000 mark on the back of buoyancy in global markets. The Sensex rose over 200 points to make an intraday high of 18,040 in early trade.
The Nifty traded 56 points higher at 5,485 at 0920 hours. It had earlier nearly taken out the crucial 5,500 mark.
Markets in Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong surged on the back of a strong rally on the Wall Street. The Nasdaq index closed above the 3,000 mark for the first time since December 2000. The Federal Reserve held rates steady as expected and said unemployment rate will to continue to decline.
Independent analyst Sarvendra Srivastava said the daily momentum have triggered fresh buy readings. "The prices have gone back above the 20- day moving averages (DMA) and a golden cross of 50 DMA above 200 DMA has also happened. The short, medium and long term setups all point at upsides and targets of 6,000-6,050 are possible," Srivastava told NDTV Profit today.
All groups of stocks traded with gains. Banks, metals, power, auto and capital goods indices on the BSE advanced over 1%.
Among metal counters, Sesa Goa (2.3%) and Sterlite (2.2%) were the top gainer on the Nifty index. IDFC (2.1), ICICI Bank (1.9%) and L&T (1.8%) were the other big Nifty gainers today.
Wipro, which is selling shares through an open auction today, and TCS were the only counters in red today.
The market breadth was strong with over 80% stocks rising on the BSE 500 index.