Weekly roundup: Sensex, Nifty hit 5-week high on FII inflows, strong buying

Rallying for the second week in a row, the stock market jumped by about 2 per cent on healthy buying in capital goods, pharma, auto and consumer durable shares on the back of sustained capital inflows.

The benchmark indices - S&P BSE Sensex and NSE CNX Nifty - scaled to their five-week highs during the truncated trading session.

The BSE and NSE were closed on February 27 on account of "Mahashivratri".

Hawkish statements given by the US Federal Reserve chief Janet Yellen before the Senate Banking Committee also aided the firm trend.

Smart rise in BHEL, L&T, Dr Reddy's Lab, Sun Pharma, Cipla, Tata Motors, M&M, Bajaj Auto, TCS, Wipro, Infosys, Axis Bank, ICICI Bank, SBI, ITC, ONGC, Hindalco, HDFC and Gail India kept the market in upbeat mood.

The Bombay Stock Exchange 30-share gauge resumed stable and moved in a range of 21,140.51 and 20,637.30 before ending the week sharply higher by 419.37 points, or 2.03 per cent, at 21,120.12 - a level not seen since January 24, 2014.

In the last two weeks, the key index has spurted by 753.30 points, or 3.70 per cent.

The CNX Nifty of the NSE rose by 121.50 points, or 1.97 per cent, to end at a five-week high of 6,276.95.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) bought shares worth Rs 1,930.92 crore in the just concluded week, including the provisional data of February 28. .

Jignesh Chaudhary, Head of Research, Veracity Broking Services said, "Indian equity markets were pretty upbeat this week as all trading sessions ended with decent gains. With good buying spree from the FII community and some positive momentum building up, markets gave the expiry a slip and traded in the positive zone on the F&O expiry day."

"Capital good, healthcare, auto and IT sectors witnessed good rallies, while metals, power and realty sectors saw some weakness. A weak Q3 GDP data which was declared on late Friday evening would be a matter of concern during the next week's trading. Sensex is expected to trade in the range of 20,850 to 21,500 and the CNX Nifty in the range of 6150 to 6350," he added.

Meanwhile, the country's economy grew below expectations at 4.7 per cent in October-December quarter on falling manufacturing sector output, from 4.8 per cent in July-September, making it a tough task to achieve 4.9 per cent GDP expansion in 2013-14.

Twenty one scrips out of the 30-share Sensex pack ended higher while nine scrips finished lower.

Major gainers were BHEL (11.10 per cent), Hindalco (7.52 per cent), Axis Bank (6.40 per cent), Dr Reddy's Lab (6.32 per cent), L&T (5.39 per cent), Tata Motor (5.33 per cent), ONGC (5.29 per cent), Sun Pharma (4.62 per cent), Bajaj Auto (4.56 per cent), M&M (4.45 per cent), Wipro (4.36 per cent), Cipla (4.08 per cent), Gail India (3.40 per cent), TCS (3.06 per cent), ITC (3.15 per cent), HDFC (2.50 per cent), Hero MotoCorp (2.44 per cent), SBI (1.90 per cent), ICICI Bank (1.85 per cent) and Infosys (1.83 per cent).