Market Overview

The Indian equity markets maintained the bullish mood during the month of September. Though the August momentum lost some steam, yet the markets generated modest gains during the month. The 30-share Sensex gained 6.38 per cent for the one-month period ended September 22. The Nifty too moved north with a gain of 5.33 per cent during the period. The year-to-date return (till September 22) for Sensex reached 30.21 per cent as compared to Nifty's 24.94 per cent.

Among the sectoral indices, BSE Bankex performed best during the month registering a gain of over 9.36 per cent, followed by BSE Oil & Gas (6.31 per cent) and BSE Capital Goods (5.99 per cent). Except BSE Metal and BSE Consumer Durables, all other sectoral indices reported a gain during the period under review. While the BSE Metal index gave a zero per cent return during the month, the BSE Consumer Durable index in fact lost 1.31 per cent.

Among the Sensex stocks, Reliance Communications was the biggest gainer recording a surge of 19.5 per cent. Other gainers included Bharti Airtel (14.55 per cent), Grasim (13.36 per cent), Maruti (11.8 per cent), L&T (11 per cent) and SBI (11 per cent). In the Sensex stocks, only three reported negative returns - Tata Motors (-1.2 per cent) ,ONGC (-1.4 per cent) and Tata Steel (-3.6 per cent).