Investor wealth zooms by Rs 1 lakh crore

Investor wealth on Thursday soared by Rs 1 lakh crore, triggered by heavy buying in the stock market, with the BSE benchmark Sensex surging about 382 points to close at near six-week high levels.

Experts said that markets surged following the US Federal Reserve Chief Ben Bernanke's comments on continuing monetary stimulus.

The Sensex ended the day 381.94 points or 1.98 per cent higher at 19,676.06, marking its biggest single-day gain since June 28. Similarly, the wide-based National Stock Exchange index Nifty gained 118.40 points, or 2.04 per cent, to close at 5,935.10.

Following gains in the market, total investor wealth shot up by around Rs 1 lakh crore to Rs 64.9 lakh crore.

"Bourses traded the entire day with strength as sentiment turned bullish after US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke said the Fed will continue with easy-money policy "for the foreseeable future"...its good time to pick up fundamentally good stocks as price levels are still attractive," said Motilal Oswal, CMD, Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd.

Among the 30 Sensex constituents, barring Maruti, Wipro and Cipla, 27 constitunets ended the day in green, with gains in the range of 0.42-4.78 per cent. Market movers such as HDFC Bank, ITC and TCS gained 3.32 per cent, 2.17 per cent and 3.10 per cent, respectively.

Among the BSE 13 sectoral indices, 12 ended the day higher, with BSE metal index emerging as the biggest winner.

Overall, 1,358 stocks gained, while 974 fell at the BSE. "Comments from Federal Reserve that they are not in hurry to close monetary easing program sent out positive indicator to the markets," said Nidhi Saraswat, Senior Research Analyst, Bonanza Portfolio Limited.