Bulls cheered Manmohan Singh government’s fresh initiatives on financial sector reforms with another strong rally. Taking gains for the week to 9.2 per cent, the benchmark Sensex rallied 3.5 per cent on Friday as the government raised hopes for financial reforms. The 30-share BSE index ended up 3.47 per cent, or 494.67 points, at 14,744.92 points. The 50-share NSE index ended up 3.4 per cent at 4,374.95.

With this, the Sensex has recovered by 1,346 points in the last four sessions. It was biggest one-day percentage rise in seven weeks and the weekly gain was the best in nearly two months and the strongest performance among major Asian markets.

Bringing cheers to the market, finance secretary Ashok Chawla said the government would introduce seven bills in Parliament, including proposals for pension and banking reforms and efforts to raise the foreign investment limit in insurance companies. The Banking Regulation (Amendment) Bill, 2005, and the State Bank of India (Amendment) Bill, 2006, which were introduced by the government in the 14th Lok Sabha have lapsed.

On Friday, most world markets followed Wall Street higher as investors welcomed stronger results from US technology bellwethers IBM Corp. and Google Inc, as well as financial giant JPMorgan Chase & Co. This week’s corporate results have come as something of a relief to investors, who sent stocks lower earlier this month out of concern earnings would reveal the US economy in far worse shape than originally thought. ICICI Bank, Infosys Technologies and HDFC led the gains in India, lifting the Sensex after it dropped 9.4 per cent last week.

... contd.