A superb ending for the stock markets happened in tandem with Team India's victory against Australia in Bangalore. Coincidence? The 484-point surge in BSE benchmark Sensex today coincided with the triumph of Indian cricket team against Australia -thus corroborating claims of a correlation between trends in stock markets and cricket field. India today completed their first ever series whitewash against Australia,with Sachin Tendulkar leading them to a comprehensive seven-wicket victory in the second and final Test match in Bangalore. Though it was purely a coincidence,many analysts believe there are some sentimental relationships between cricket and Dalal Street. A recent research by Monash University in Australia showed that when India's cricket team loses one-day matches,stock markets take a beating. If master blaster Tendulkar is on the losing side,the damage to the bourses is even worse. Research by economists Russell Smyth and Vinod Mishra of Monash University suggested that the performance of the Indian cricket team in one-day matches can significantly impact the fortunes of the Indian stock market. "While a win by the Indian cricket team has no statistically significant upward impact on stock market returns,a loss generates a significant downward movement in the stock market," Smyth,the Head of Monash University's Department of Economics,had said. In the second test match,Tendulkar (53 not out) added a half century to his first innings double ton and capitalised on the foundation laid by debutant Cheteshwar Pujara (72) as India easily surpassed the target of 207 in the final session of the last day. With the back-to-back victories,having won the first Test at Mohali by a narrow 1 wicket,India took the two-match series 2-0. With the win in the exciting Test,India strengthened their position at the top of ICC Test rankings while Australia were pushed down to fifth. For Australia,this was the first time after 1982 that they have been handed a series whitewash by the opposition. They had lost 0-3 in their 1982 Test tour of Pakistan. After trading in a narrow trading range for the past 7 days,the bulls were back with a bang on Dalal Street today. The BSE Sensex soared over 450 points and the NSE Nifty rose by over 140 points,among the biggest single-day gains in recent memor. The Bombay Stock Exchange's 30-share barometer closed the day 484.54 points,or 2.4 per cent,up at 20,687.88 its best closing since January 14,2008,when the index had ended at 20,728.05. Today's gain was the highest rise in a single day,since May 10,2010,when the Sensex had rallied by 561 points. India was the best performing market among Asian peers today. "Indian markets seemed to have forgotten about the poor IIP data,with the benchmark indices posting their biggest single day gain in over five months," IIFL Head of Research (India Private Clients) Amar Ambani said.
