The Indian broader markets went through bouts of volatility throughout the passing week. Though the election euphoria remained high after the announcement of the results, some profit booking too appeared in few sections, after the passing of the big event. Early part of the week begun on an optimistic note with a lot of foreign brokers upgrading their GDP forecasts, hereby exuberating confidence among the investors. However, there was some profit booking in the mid of the week ahead of the release of the minutes from recent policy meetings by the US Federal Reserve and on concern of FII selling, but the markets bounced back and posted handsome gains in the last two sessions to snap the week on a strong note.
Markets got further boost when RBI notified that it had eased norms for loans to exporters. The RBI stated that the domestic exporters can now get long-term loans from banks for up to 10 years to service export contracts. There was also some support with National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) in its latest release saying that the business confidence in last quarter of 2013-14 improved further on expectations of a new electoral mandate. The BCI in March quarter rose by about 3.8 per cent from the previous quarter to 127 points.
S&P BSE Sensex index gained 572 points or 2.37% to 24,693.35 during the week ended May 23, 2014. CNX Nifty on the other hand rose 2.28%. Broader indices were outplayed by BSE Midcap index which was up by 903 points or 11.62% to 8,668.32, while the Small-cap index was up by 15.75%.
On the sectoral front, Reality was the top performing sector as it rose by 371 points or 23.13%, preceded by Power sector, which rose 17.23%. At the opposite end of the spectrum, Healthcare was down 250 points or 2.42%, while IT was down 2.34 %.
Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) were net buyers in equity with net inflows of Rs 4800 crores. They also stood as net buyer in the debt segment with net inflows of Rs 5466 crores.
