Mumbai: Equities staged an impressive rebound halting a runaway sell-off following value buying in severely beaten-down frontling heavyweights provided the bourse with positive support as benchmark Nifty surged by a healthy 72 points on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) here.
The Indian markets had been facing intense selling pressure for quite some time in the midst of tepid corporate earnings outcome along with worries over consistent unwinding by FIIs on the back of retrospective taxation issues amid nervousness on below normal monsoon prediction.
After witnessing choppy trade with high volatility in the morning session, the benchmark made a dramatic turnaround in the last hour of trade following heavy buying in banking, auto and infra related stocks.
Moreover, hectic short covering ahead of May options expiry by traders and some bargain value buying also aided the sentiment.
The bellwether index had briefly plunged below the key psychological 8,200 mark earlier in the day.
The broader 50-share index oscillated between a high of 8,308 and a low of 8,185.15 before ending at 8,285.60, showing a smart recovery of 71.80 points, or 0.87 percent.
Bank Nifty was the top gainer among the sectoral indices, surging 2.69 percent led by private lender major ICICI Bank along with grouping of bank stocks like SBI, Axis Bank, HDFC, Yes Bank, Bank of Baroda, Kotak Bank, Indusind Bank and PNB.
Among other array of sector indices, Auto rose 2.42 percent, Realty 1.76 percent, PSU Bank 1.72 percent and Infra 1.09 percent. The Midcap and Smallcap also jumped by 1.64 percent and 1.67 percent respectively. While, FMCG, IT and Metal remained under selling pressure.
Tata Motors, Maruti, Idea, TechM, Bharti Airtel, Asian Paint, BPCL, M&M, NTPC, BHEL, Heromotoco, Ultracemcom, Cairn, ACC, Hindalco and Dr Reddys are some of the prominent Nifty gainers.
The worst performers of the session included ITC, Infosys, Reliance, HCL-Tech, ONGC, Coal India, Zee, TCS and L&T.
Meanwhile, barring Japan's Nikkei most Asian equities finished lower underpinned by overnight fall in US stocks amid nervousness ahead of two-day Fed meet outcome.
Turnover in the cash segment rose to Rs 19,098.84 crore from Rs 18,945.64 crore yesterday. A total of 7,874.62 lakh shares changed hands in 83,76,441 trades. The total market capitalisation of NSE stood at Rs 9,723,723 crore.
