Mumbai: Equities broke their string of losses with a resounding bounce, as investors went on a buying spree in beaten-down counters with the benchmark Nifty surging by a massive 150 points to regain the psychological 8,300 mark on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) here.
Though the relief rally was entirely based on short covering, fresh long positions were created after consistent sell-off in April even as retail investors took the advantage of the current bearish market to buy value stocks.
Moreover, soothing comments from Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on the Minimum Alternate Tax (MAT) levied to FIIs also adequately supported the pullback rally.
Providing a huge breather to foreign investors, Finance Minister had on Thursday said that capital gains made by them from sale of securities as well as royalties, interest, technical services fee earned by foreign companies will be exempt from MAT.
After a strong start, bourses maintained their strong momentum throughout the session while consolidating gains till the end.
The broader 50-share index shot-up by a hefty 150.45 points, or 1.84 percent to end at 8,331.95 after hitting an intra-day high of 8,346.
India has been one of the worst performing markets among its major world peers after recent scary spell of corrections which wiped out their entire gains made this year following massive unwinding by foreign portfolio investors on account of retrospective tax worries, fading optimism over economic recovery and tepid corporate earnings growth in the midst of Fed rate hike fears.
The benchmark Nifty had lost over a staggering 10 percent from its March historic high level of 9,119.20.
Among the sectoral front, all major indices ended significantly in the green with Energy contributing the most, up by 3.47 percent.
It was followed by Banking (2.71 percent), Realty (2.64 percent), Healthcare (2.29 percent), FMCG (2.05 percent), Infra (1.79 percent), Auto (1.73 percent), Metal (1.64 percent) and Bank Nifty (0.89 percent).
The mid-cap and small-cap indices were up 2.86 and 2.47 percent, respectively.
Energy producers, mainly PSU upstream companies saw strong demand on speculation that the government will bear the entire burden of fuel subsidy.
Auto counters also witnessed good amount of buying interest, riding mainly on robust sales numbers in April.
There were big moves in retail sector too, buoyed by Aditya Birla Group's decision to consolidate all its branded apparel businesses into Pantaloons Fashion and Retail.
ONGC, Reliance, HDFC, Infosys, ITC, M&M, SBI, HDFC Bank, HCL Tech, Bajaj Auto, Cipla, Bharti Airtel, IDEA, Dr Reddys, TCS, Lupin, HUL, Sun Pharma, ZEE, Asian Paints, Indusind Bank, Heroromotoco, Hindalco, BHEL, Yes Bank, PNB, BPCL, Power Grid, Coal India, Maruti and NTPC were the biggest index movers.
Notable losers were ICICI Bank, Tech Mahindra and Tata Motors.
Turnover in the cash segment fell to Rs 16,362.21 crore from Rs 25,559.31 crore last Thursday.
A total of 6,813.38 lakh shares changed hands in 69,38,077 trades while the total market capitalisation stood at Rs 9,886,976 crore.
