MUMBAI, MAR 3: The stock markets staged yet another scintillating rally as the interest rate cut coming close on the heels of budget sops made bulls charge with renewed vigour. The bull run continued unabated on Wednesday with the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Sensitive Index (Sensex) zooming by another 116 points in frenzied buying on major stock exchanges in the country.The euphoric buying for the third successive session after the presentation of the Union budget saw Sensex breaching the 3,600 mark. With this, Sensex has recorded a whopping gain of 407 points in the last three sessions. It is for the first time after March 1992 that Sensex had recorded a gain of 407 points in three consecutive trading sessions after the Union budget. Sensex had recorded three-digit gains for three days - on March 30, 31 and April 2 - after the then Finance Minister Manmohan Singh presented his first budget in 1992.After the presentation of a market-friendly budget in Parliament last Saturday, the announcement ofinterest rate cuts by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Monday evening came as a second dose of tonic to the capital market. ``The cut in interest rates will spur economic growth. industry and market will ultimately benefit from the move,'' said a broker.Sensex opened at 3638.56, touched the day's high of 3691.02 and fell to touch the day's low of 3625.46 before closing at 3640.42, showing a sizeable gain of 116.44 points from the previous close of 3523.98. The BSE-100 index also crossed the 1600 mark and ended at 1605.37 with a net gain of 45.64 points compared to the previous level of 1559.73.Similarly, the S&P CNX Nifty Index of the National Stock Exchange opened at 1066.40 points, touched the day's high of 1073.05 points and low of 1051.80, before closing at 1051.85 points, showing a net gain of 36.05 points from the previous close of 1015.80 points.Marketmen said the cut in interest rates, cash reserve ratio and repo rates would benefit corporates in a big way. The market staged a rallyfollowing the RBI's new measures as they are going to help stock markets indirectly. Banking scrips like SBI, Corporation Bank and the shares of financial institutions staged a smart rally on expectations of an increase in their profitability through the RBI's cut in bank rate and prime lending rates. Other select scrips like Reliance, ITC, Mahindra and Mahindra, SBI and Pentafour Software witnessed heavy FII buying while Hindustan Lever, Ranbaxy, NIIT also witnessed volatile trading.Pfizer, Dr Reddy, Infosys Tech, NIIT, Pentafour Software, BPL, Corp Bank and SBI were among the 18 specified scrips that hit the circuit filter limits. Over 125 scrips from B1 and B2 groups also hit the upper price band.The total volume of business was high at Rs 2272.16 crore. ITC was the most active scrip with a turnover of Rs 331.38 crore followed by Pentafour Software Rs 196.37 crore, Reliance Rs 195.39 crore, Satyam Computer Rs 170.91 crore and Tata Tea Rs 150.55 crore. ITC soared by Rs 29.25 to Rs 924.25, PentafourSoftware by Rs 74.75 to Rs 1011.75, Reliance by Rs 6.30 to Rs 151.30, Satyam Computer by Rs 37 to Rs 1109.75, Hindustan Lever Rs 89 to Rs 2140.75, SBI by Rs 12.50 to Rs 172.50 and TELCO by Rs 9.60 to Rs 186.60.The equity markets are likely to get a big boost through the budget incentives proposed for investment in mutual funds and rationalisation of long term capital gains tax, rating firm ICRA has said, adding, ``Incentives provided by the Finance Minister will help in bringing equity investors back to mutual fund schemes as well as in reviving the equity cult.''
