The S&P BSE Sensex gained just 385 points during a truncated week ended March 23 and yet select Sensex stocks added a combined Rs 38,620 crore in market capitalisation. Diversified company ITC and state-owned Coal India were two exceptions among frontline stocks that saw an erosion in their market capitalisation.
The biggest gainers were TCS, Sun Pharma, Hindustan Unilever, HDFC Bank, HDFC, Reliance Industries and Infosys. TCS added the maximum to shareholders' wealth at Rs 9,349.68 crore, followed by Sun Pharma.
The top Sensex gainers on the last day of the trading week were Tata Steel, Bharti Airtel, Bajaj Auto, Infosys and Coal India. The top Sensex losers were Reliance Industries, GAIL (India) and NTPC.
The last trading week of financial year 2015-16 is likely to commence on a positive note as domestic mutual funds are likely to resort to buying to shore up net asset values, or NAVs.
"Global funds have bought $2.4 billion of shares this month, set for the biggest monthly purchase since January 2015," said Vijay Ingrain, founder director of Trade Smart Online — a leading discount broker, according to a BusinessLine report.
There isn't any other trigger for the markets to witness hectic trading. The expectation is that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) could cut policy rate by as much as 50 basis point when it meets for its first monetary policy review for 2016-17 April 5.
The current policy rate (also repo rate, or key interest rate) is 6.75 percent.
