Sensex zooms 409 pts; regains 19,000 level after 32 months

Mumbai: The BSE benchmark Sensex Monday zoomed by more than 408 points to cross the 19,000-level for the first time in 32 months on aggressive buying across banking, energy and realty sectors, sparked by robust factory output in July.
Extending its gains for the fifth successive session, the 30-share benchmark of the Bombay Stock Exchange surged by 408.67 points, or 2.17 percent, to 19,208.33 -- its best close since January 17, 2008, when the Sensex closed at 19,700.
Stretching last week's solid gains, the National Stock Exchange's wide-based 50-share Nifty index ended 2.13 percent higher at 5,760.
Analysts said that markets will scale new heights in the coming days on sustained inflows of overseas funds.
"The Indian equities would continue to be sweet spot and continue to gradually move upwards," Angel Broking CMD Dinesh Thakkar said.
Monday's rally was led by SBI, Reliance Industries, ICICI Bank, HDFC, Hindalco and R-Infra, which attracted hectic buying. Led by banking, oil & gas, realty and metal stocks, all the sectoral indices of the BSE ended with gains.
"Strong index of industrial production (IIP) numbers fired the Sensex, which inched up to cross the 19,000-mark, its highest (close) in almost last three years," Thakkar said.
Industrial growth accelerated to 13.8 percent in July from 7.2 percent in the corresponding month last year on the back of a 63 percent jump in capital goods production. Among the main industry segments, manufacturing activity expanded by 15 percent from 7.4 percent a year ago.
Reliance Industries Ltd, which holds the maximum weight in the Sensex, bounced back smartly and ended with a net gain of 3.58 percent at Rs 992.20. In the previous session, the scrip had ended 0.22 percent lower.
State Bank of India stole the show and was the top gainer in the Sensex pack. The scrip ended 5.5 percent higher. Other financial stocks were also in high demand.
HDFC zoomed 5.32 percent, ICICI Bank 4.43 percent and HDFC Bank 1.86 percent.
"Banks led from the front on optimism that lending will pick up in a fast-growing Indian economy and that they are well capitalised," IIFL vice-president (research) Amar Ambani said.
DLF climbed 3.42 percent, Hindalco 4.5 per cent, R-Infra 4.47 percent and Jaiprakash Associates 2.35 percent.

Other major gainers of the day included Infosys, which rose by 1.5 per cent, Tata Steel (up 1.34 percent) and L&T (up 1.12 percent).
Fuelled by the company's plans to make a joint bid with Petrovietnam for British Petroleum's (BP) Vietnam assets, ONGC ended 1.5 percent higher.
In the BSE-30 pack, 26 stocks ended with gains, while 4  scrips lagged behind and settled in the red.
Wipro led the losers pack and ended 1.27 percent lower, while RCom was down by 0.43 percent, Hero Honda by 0.28 percent and Bharti Airtel by 0.17 percent.