Reference Auto

With the Budget providing the much-needed succour to FIIs and foreign funds, the Sensex as well as the Nifty saw a rise of 4.5 per cent during the previous week ended Friday. The Budget led to a positive sentiment which resulted in buying in sectors such as auto, real estate, FMCG as well as banking.

The Budget has allowed foreign investors to directly invest in mutual funds and also shored up foreign funds in corporate bonds and the unchanged excise duty also spurred the bourses. Overall, the Budget was hailed by industry as a positive one.

The BSE Sensex surged by 785.54 points, or 4.44 per cent, to end last week at 18,486.45 compared to the previous week. The NSE 50-share Nifty was also up 235.20 points, or 4.43 per cent, to close the week at 5,538.75.

The benchmark index recorded its highest rise in 21 months, surging over 623 points on March 1, getting a fillip from the overall buying.

Another big positive was the food inflation, which slid by more than 1 percentage point to 10.39 per cent during the week ended February 19, owing to a fall in prices of onions, potatoes and pulses.

Also, with the Cabinet clearing the Banking Regulation (Amendment) Bill 2011, sentiment was at a new high.

The Auto index was the highest gainer, up 668.25 points or a whopping 8.10 per cent and was followed by the FMCG index which saw a rise by 223.06 points or 6.79 per cent, Realty surged 121.18 points (6.19 per cent), Bankex 612.36 points, Capital Goods 625.28 points or 5.07 per cent, and PSU surged 354.15 points or 4.31 per cent.

Among Sensex stocks, the big gainers were Mahindras (up 13.64 per cent), Maruti Suzuki (a rise of 12.21 per cent), ITC (which surged 10.47 per cent), HDFC (up 8.77 per cent), HDFC Bank (up 8.41 per cent), Bajaj Auto (a 7.25 per cent gain) and RCom (a 6.51 per cent rise).

The stocks that rose also include Larsen and Toubro (which surged 6.46 per cent), Tata Motors (a rise of 5.85 per cent) Bhel (up 5.57 per cent), Jaiprakash Associatess (up 5.26 per cent), Hindalco (a rise of 4.92 per cent) and State Bank of India (4.90 per cent). But Reliance Infra tanked 4.91 per cent and Bharti Airtel slid 0.74 per cent.

In the Wall Street, weekly jobless figures for the US were at a new low and this was good enough reason for buoyancy in the markets. The European markets were almost flat but headed a tad north.

The markets have reached a state of unpredictability as, on one hand, a good Budget and world markets seem to give a booster dose, and on the other hand, unrelenting trouble in West Asia and North Africa could fire up oil prices and the stock markets could take a big plunge in the near term.