Sensex bounces back 165 points as monsoon arrives

Mumbai: The benchmark BSE Sensex shrugged off its initial weakness and rebounded over 164 points to 26,978.22 in late afternoon trade on June 5 on value-buying as the much-awaited monsoon finally arrived in Kerala. Key blue-chips Coal India, Sun Pharma, GAIL, HUL and L&T led the gains. The market had fallen over 1,000 points over the past few sessions after the RBI's cautious rate stance and the Met Department's downward revision of 2015 monsoon forecast to "deficient" from "slightly below normal" sparking fears of a drought. Recovery in the rupee somewhat supported the upside.

The Sensex, which fell over 84 points in early trade on sustained selling pressure, traded higher by 164.80 points, or 0.61 per cent, at 26,978.22 during the late session. The NSE Nifty, too, traded in the positive zone, up 47 points, or 0.58 per cent, at 8,177.65 after sliding to 8,100.15. Brokers attributed the modest recovery to value-buying by investors as several stocks were in oversold zone and recovery in the rupee against the American currency.

The rupee was trading 13 paise higher at Rs 63.87 (intra-session). In the the Sensex pack, Coal India caught buyers' attention, which climbed 4.85 per cent to Rs 407.15 after Morgan Stanley upgraded it to "overweight" from "equal-weight". Other major gainers were NTPC, Wipro, M&M, ITC, and Tata Steel. Meanwhile, FIIs net bought shares worth Rs 511.90 crore yesterday, according to provisional exchange data.