MUMBAI: The Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex was up by over 600 points today, boosted by strong buying activity in the IT, realty and banking sectors after the US Federal Reserve indicated that the US economy was poised to grow in the second half of 2011.
The Sensex, which lost nearly 650 points in the previous three trading sessions, bounced back by 601.10 points to 16449.93 at 3:08 PM today after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S Bernanke said the US economy is gradually recovering.
Similarly, the broad-based National Stock Exchange Nifty index surged by 178.45 points to 4926.25 at 3:08 PM.
Reliance Industries, the most-weighted firm in the 30-share Sensex pack, rose by 4.93 per cent to Rs 755.00, while the second-most weighted firm, Infosys, rose by 4.78 per cent to Rs 2310.00.
Among the other major gainers, Tata Consultancy Services shot up by 7.24 per cent to Rs 1017.85, State Bank of India by 2.93 per cent to Rs 1944.00 and HDFC Bank by 3.72 per cent to Rs 455.00.
BSE IT index was up 5.1% led by gains in Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (up 6.9%), HCL Technologies Ltd (up 7.09%), Infosys Ltd (up 4.8%) and Patni Computer Systems (up 6.2%)
BSE Banking was index up 4.2% led by gains in Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd (up 6.4%), Yes Bank (up 4.8%), ICICI Bank Ltd (up 4.6%), SBI (up 2.8%) and Axis Bank(up 4.2%).
BSE Realty index was up 4.6% led by gains in Anant Raj Industries Ltd (up 6.3%), Unitech Ltd (up 5.9%), Indisbulls Real Estate (up 6.9%), DLF (up 4.8%) and DB Realty (up 2.8%).
"The trend deciding level for the day is 15,957 on the Sensex and 4,780 levels on the Nifty. If NIFTY trades above this level during the first half-an-hour of trade then we may witness a further rally up to 16,148 - 16,448 / 4,840 - 4,932 levels", according to a report by Angel Broking.
"However, if NIFTY trades below 15,957 / 4,780 levels for the first half-an-hour of trade then it may correct up to 15,657 - 15,466 / 4,688 - 4,628 levels", added the report.
"It is possible that Nifty could trade at levels of 4,700 on the downside and 4,900 on the upside in near-term. For day traders it represents an opportunity on the long side because we could go up to 4,850-4,900 on Nifty", added Sudarshan Sukhani of Technical Trends.
"When the trend reverses on the downside the short selling opportunities for short-term traders will come again and that is the correct trade because the trend is clearly down", said Sudarshan Sukhani.
Gold snapped a three-day gaining streak following similar trend globally. A strong rupee also made the dollar-quoted yellow metal cheaper, triggering a slight pick-up in physical demand ahead of key festivals.
At 1:14 p.m., the most-active gold for October delivery on the Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX) was trading 1.95 percent lower at 27,099 rupees per 10 grams Global spot gold fell more than 1 percent, reversing a rally of 3.2 percent in the previous session, as investors, faced with uncertainties over the US Federal Reserve's stimulus plans, decided to take some money off the table.
Meanwhile, Global stocks jumped almost one per cent while the dollar struggled after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke left the door open for further action to stimulate the US economy and fight unemployment.
World shares rose 0.9 per cent, with Asian markets tracking a strong bounce for Wall Street, which closed up 1 percent following Bernanke's keynote speech in Jackson Hole on Friday.
