A RALLY

Indian stock markets commenced the final month of the year on an exhilarating note and the benchmarks even rallied beyond the psychological 5,000 (Nifty) and 16,700 (Sensex) levels in the early part of session on Thursday. Though, the benchmarks failed to capitalize on the initial momentum, nevertheless, the session turned out to be an exhilarating one as it saw the key gauges garner over two percentage points and snap the second consecutive session in the positive terrain. Sentiments remained buoyant right from the start of trade as investors welcomed the world's major central banks' new strategy to keep Europe's debt crisis from choking off global lending, a dramatic step that comes as the availability of credit for businesses and consumers has shown signs of freezing up. Amid the ongoing global credit crunch and lingering Euro-zone woes, the six leading central banks including US, Canada, UK, Japan, Switzerland and Europe acted in concert by joining forces to lend dollars more cheaply to foreign banks. Moreover, reports that the central bank in China reduced the reserve requirement ratio of its banks by 50 bps to shore up activity in the world's second-largest economy, also encouraged marketmen. The better than expected US payrolls and housing data too did their bit in propping up sentiments. However, reports of contraction in Chinese manufacturing PMI for the first time in about three years coupled with news of decelerating European manufacturing activity which declined to a 28 month lows, limited the upside chances for the domestic bourses. On the domestic front, the encouraging weekly inflation numbers underpinned buying interests in the rate sensitive pockets like Banking, Real Estate and Automobile. The inflation data showed that food inflation eased for the fourth straight week in the week ended November 19 and rose by 8%, its slowest pace in nearly four months. Meanwhile, investors overlooked disappointing reports that growth of eight core infrastructure industries for the month of October 2011 declined to six year low-level of 0.1% compared to 7.2% in October 2010 while a separate survey by HSBC Markit showed that India's manufacturing PMI fell to 51.0 from 52.0 in October, but stayed above the 50 mark for the 32nd month that divides growth from contraction.
Earlier on Dalal Street, the benchmark got off to an exuberant opening and surged over three and half a percent in the initial moments of trade thanks to the wonderful tidings on the global front. However, the indices failed to capitalize on the smart opening and kept losing steam through the day's trade. The frontline gauges kept hovering around the psychological 4,950 (Nifty) and 16,600 (Sensex) in the early noon trades however, the indices got dragged to the lowest levels in the session soon after the somber European market opening on the back of disappointing economic reports and ECB President Draghi's cautious comments. Despite the late selling pressure, the benchmarks went home with huge gains. Finally the NSE's 50-share broadly followed index Nifty went for a triple digit rally to settle slightly below the crucial 4,950 support level while Bombay Stock Exchange's Sensitive Index -Sensex- accumulated over three hundred fifty points and ended below the psychological 16,500 mark. Moreover, the sanguinity in broader markets got tapered by the end of session as they finished the session with moderate gains, underperforming their larger peers. On the BSE sectoral space, the Metal sector kept shining brightly through the day and remained the top gainer in the space with over four percent gains followed by the rate sensitives like Banking and Realty counters which settled with over three and half a percent gains each. Defensive Healthcare pack remained only chink in the armor with moderate cuts while, some individual names like BHEL, Bharti Airtel and HUL bucked the optimistic trend and traded in the negative terrain. The markets soared on larger volumes of around Rs 1.27 lakh crore while the turnover for NSE F&O segment too remained on the higher side as compared to Wednesday at over 1.13 lakh crore. The market breadth remained optimistic as there were 1689 shares on the gaining side against 1114 shares on the losing side while 117 shares remained unchanged.
Finally, the BSE Sensex jumped 359.99 points or 2.23% to settle at 16,483.45, while the S&P CNX Nifty climbed by 104.80 points or 2.17% to close at 4,936.85.
The BSE Sensex touched a high and a low of 16,718.11 and 16,430.61 respectively. The BSE Mid cap and Small cap index were up by 0.97% and 0.43% respectively.
The top gainers on the Sensex were Hindalco Industries up 6.97%, ICICI Bank up 6.76%, Sterlite Industries up 6.19%, Tata Motors up 6.06% and DLFup 5.34%. While, BHEL down 2.46%, Bharti Airtel down 1.65%, Hindustan Unilever down 1.29%, Maruti Suzuki down 0.69% and Sun Pharma down 0.21% were the major losers on the index.
The top gainers on the BSE sectoral space were, Metal up 4.14%, Bankex up 3.72%, Realty up 3.54%, Consumer Durables (CD) up 2.58% and Auto up 2.40%, while Health Care (HC) down 0.32% was the only loser on the BSE sectoral space.
Meanwhile, India's weekly food inflation measured by the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) witnessed a sharp moderation to 8% for the week ended November 19 from 9.01% in the last week. The decline in food inflation has come on the back of moderation in prices of vegetables, cereals, potato, onion and wheat. Though, prices of most agricultural items, barring the above, continued to rise on an annual basis.
According to the data released by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, the index for 'Food Articles' group  declined by 1.4% to 195.7 (Provisional) from 198.5  (Provisional) for the previous week due to lower prices of fruits and vegetables (5%), ragi (3%), fish-marine(2%) and jowar, gram, masur, poultry chicken and condiments and spices (1% each).  However, the prices of maize, milk, mutton, pork and tea (1% each) moved up.
The index for `Non-Food Articles` group rose by 1.1% to176.7(Provisional) from 174.7 (Provisional) for the previous week due to higher prices of flowers (12%), coir fibre and gingelly seed(4% each),  groundnut seed and raw rubber (3% each), raw silk and copra(2% each) and rape and mustard seed, cotton seed and soyabean (1% each). However, the prices of niger seed (3%), linseed (2%) and raw cotton, and raw jute (1% each) declined.
The index for `Minerals` group rose by 0.2% to 311.1 (Provisional) from 310.5 (Provisional) for the previous week due to higher prices of bauxite (9%), barytes (7%) and chromite (1%).  However, the higher prices of steatite (13%) and magnesite (1%) declined.
As a result the index for 'Primary Articles' which accounts for 20.12% of the WPI declined by 0.7% to 200.4 (Provisional) from 201.9 (Provisional) for the previous week. The annual rate of inflation, calculated on point to point basis, stood at 7.74% (Provisional) for the week ended November 19 as compared to 9.08% (Provisional) for the previous week. 

Meanwhile, the index for 'Fuel and Power' group, which accounts for 14.91% of WPI, rose by 0.2% to 171.8 (Provisional) from 171.5 (Provisional) for the previous week due to higher prices of naphtha and furnace oil (3% each) and aviation turbine fuel (2%).  However, the prices of petrol (3%) and light diesel oil (2%) declined. The annual rate of inflation, calculated on point to point basis, stood at 15.53% (Provisional) for the week ended November 19 as compared to 15.49% (Provisional) for the previous week. 

The fourth successive decline in the India's weekly food inflation is expected to provide some relief to the government, policy- makers and industry. The RBI has hiked interest rates 13 times since March 2010, to tame demand and curb inflation. However, in its second quarterly review of the monetary policy last month, the RBI had said that it expected inflation to remain elevated till December on account of the demand-supply mismatch, before moderating to 7% by March 2012.
The S&P CNX Nifty touched a high and low of 5,011.90 and 4,916.70 respectively.
The top gainers on the Nifty were Hindalco up 6.99%, ICICI Bank up 6.95%, SAIL up 6.73%, Sterlite Industries up 6.34% and Tata Motors up 5.70%. On the flip side, BHEL down 3.08%, BPCL down 2.69%, Dr Reddy down 2.31%, Bharti Airtel down 2.24% and Maruti Suzuki down 1.25% were the top losers on the index.
The European markets were trading mixed. France's CAC 40 lost 0.10%, Britain's FTSE 100 up by 0.36% and Germany's DAX down by 0.47%.
Stocks of Asian region rallied to two-week highs on Thursday, building on strong global gains after an agreement among global central banks to make cheaper dollar loans available to struggling European banks while, news of 50-basis-point cut in Chinese bank's reserve requirement ratio too strengthen the sentiments. The US Federal Reserve, and the central banks of the UK, the euro zone, Canada, Japan and Switzerland announced that they had agreed to reduce the cost of offering dollar financing through swap arrangements.
China's benchmark stock index closed 2.3 percent higher on Thursday, the biggest percentage rise in 5 weeks and with banking stocks up sharply, after the central bank announced a cut in banks' reserve requirement ratios (RRR) in a reversal of its recent tight monetary policy stance. The People's Bank of China announced a 50-basis-point RRR cut after the market closed on Wednesday, which will take effect on December 5, a policy shift to ease credit strains and shore up an economy running at its weakest pace since 2009.