Sensex soars 718 points, banking stocks lead rally

Mumbai: Equity benchmark Sensex on Monday surged over 718 points to close over 34,000-level buoyed by stellar performance of banking stocks tracking robust quarterly earnings and RBI's move to ease liquidity crunch.

Among the Sensex constituents, ICICI Bank was the biggest gainer with 11 per cent jump, followed by State Bank of India, which rose 8.04 per cent. The country's top private sector lender ICICI Bank swung into profit in the second quarter of this ongoing fiscal. The bank had reported a net loss of Rs 119.55 crore in the first quarter of the current fiscal.

On year-on-year basis, ICICI Bank, however, reported a 42 per cent drop in its consolidated net profit to Rs 1,204.62 crore in the September 2018 quarter. Other top Sensex gainers were Adani Ports, L&T, Axis Bank, Reliance Industries, Tata Steel and TCS, rising up to 7.33 per cent.

Market sentiments were further revived by the Reserve Bank's decision to pump in Rs 40,000 crore into the system in November through purchase of government securities, with an aim to tackle liquidity crunch.

Snapping its two-day losing streak, the 30-share index ended 718.09 points, or 2.15 per cent, higher at 34,067.40. It had opened 173.33 points, or 0.52 per cent, higher at 33,522.64.

The NSE Nifty too surged 220.85 points, or 2.20 per cent, to reclaim the 10,250 mark. It had opened 44.25 points, or 0.44 per cent, higher at 10,074.25. Bucking the uptrend in a majority of Sensex constituents, IndusInd Bank, HDFC Bank, Kotak Bank and Bharti Airtel fell up to 2.26 per cent. Meanwhile, the rupee was trading flat at 73.43 against the US currency.

According to Friday's provisional data, foreign funds sold shares worth a net of Rs 1,356.66, while domestic institutional investors bought shares to the tune of Rs 1,875.89 crore.