Indian stock markets soared on Monday amid the hopes that the war-like situation on the border between India and Pakistan may ease further. After moving in an intra-day range of 53 points, the BSE 30-share Sensitive Index (Sensex) shot up by 62 points or 1.75 per cent to close at 3279.49. The broader National Stock Exchange 50-share index gained 1.78 per cent (21.08 points). Reflecting the change in trend, the Sensex opened firm at 3231.01, which was also the day’s low, and moved up further to a high of 3283.25 before closing at 3279.49 as against last Friday’s close of 3117.76, a sharp spurt of 1.92 per cent. The broad-based BSE-100 index also shot up by 32.94 points to 1661.81 from the previous close of 1628.87. Pakistan stocks brighten up too Karachi: Pakistani stocks surged in early trading on Monday amid an easing of tension between the nuclear-armed adversaries. The benchmark Karachi Stock Exchange 100-share index soared as much as five per cent to a high of 1,779.06. Dealers in Karachi said the Pakistani market was reacting to reports that India will announce measures in the next two days to ease tension with Pakistan after Islamabad vowed late last week to stop Islamic militant infiltration into Indian Kashmir. “Exchange of tense words between the two countries is seemingly over. Instead Indians are talking about options to reduce tensions,” said Shuja Rizvi, a dealer at I.P. Securities in Karachi. The Karachi dealer attributed the bigger jump in Pakistani stocks to investors responding to the attractive price levels of blue-chip shares, which plunged last week after many foreign governments urged their citizens to get out of the region. ENS Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) reportedly have slowed down their selling, picked up select IT and public sector undertakings (PSUs) shares. Last week, the BSE Sensex for the Indian market rose 4.3 per cent, paring its losses since the crisis began to 6.6 per cent. At Friday’s close, the Sensex was down 1.4 per cent since the start of the year. Dealers in Mumbai said investors were buying beaten-down heavyweights like petrochemicals’ giant Reliance Industries, Hindustan Lever and software bellwether Infosys Technologies. The three account for nearly 37 per cent of the Bombay index. Ranbaxy was up 6.35 per cent to Rs 827.75 on the reports that the company plans to file applications for permission to market modified generics of two key drugs in the United States soon. Tata Iron & Steel (up 6.17% to Rs 127.25) gained ground on sustained buying. The steel major hiked its product prices by Rs 800 per tonne earlier this month. Players feel the fears of an imminent war in the sub-continent have receded to a large extent as India welcomed a pledge by Pakistan to stop militants infiltrating into Kashmir. The Indian rupee was quoted at 49.01/02 per dollar, as compared with Friday’s close of 49.0175
