Sharp RIL rally helps sensex gain 454 pts – Times of India

Mumbai: A sharp 6.4% rise in the Reliance Industries (RIL) stock led to an over 600-point recovery in the sensex from early lows on Thursday. The index finally closed 454 points up at 58,795. The RIL stock surged after the company announced late on Wednesday that it would hive off its gasifier business to a wholly owned arm.
The sensex opened flat and dipped over 200 points but rallied through the session to an intra-day high at 58,902 and settled a bit lower from the peak. The surge in the RIL stock on Thursday also added a little over Rs 70,200 crore to its market capitalisation with the current market value at about Rs 16.6 lakh crore. This also includes the last traded value of all its partly paid shares, currently suspended from trading.
Of the 454 points gained by the sensex, 418 points was contributed by RIL alone, BSE data showed. Other stocks that contributed majorly to the index’s gain for the day were Infosys, Kotak Bank and ITC. On the other hand, selling in ICICI Bank, HUL and HDFC restricted the rise in the index.
The day’s gains came despite strong selling by foreign funds, end-of-the-session data on the BSE showed. Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) were net sellers at Rs 2,301 crore. This was the fourth consecutive session of net selling by FPIs with the total for the current week at over Rs 17,100 crore, or about $2.3 billion.