Indices surge in opening trade

he market opened higher as investors rejoiced further decline in
crude oil prices. All the sectoral indces on BSE were in green led
by banking shares. Mid-caps and small-caps, too, witnessed demand.

US front-month crude oil settled on Friday, 8 August 2008, at
$115.20 a barrel, down $4.82 for the day on the New York Mercantile
Exchange. In post-settlement trading, crude tumbled more than $5 to
$114.62 a barrel -- more than 20% below its NYMEX record high above
$147 set in July 2008.

The slide in oil prices to their lowest level in three months
powered a rally in US stocks on Friday, 8 August 2008. The Dow
Jones industrial average rose 302.89 points, or 2.65%, to
11,734.32, while the Standard & Poor's 500 Index jumped 30.25
points, or 2.39%, to 1,296.32. The Nasdaq Composite Index gained
58.37 points, or 2.48%, to 2,414.10.

Asian market, which opened before Indian market, were in green. The
key benchmark indices in Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea
and Taiwan were up by between 1.09% to 2.15%.

At 10:25 IST, the BSE 30-share Sensex was up 280.36 points or 1.85%
to 15,448.18. The index rose 314.33 points at day's high of
15,482.15 at the onset of trading session. At the day's low of
15,418.18, the Sensex rose 250.36 in early trade.

The S&P CNX Nifty was up 70 points or 1.55% to 4599.50.

The BSE Mid-Cap index was up 1.43% to 5,971.44 and the BSE
Small-Cap index was up 1.39% to 7,281.60.

The market breadth was strong on BSE with 1417 shares advancing as
compared to 328 that declined. 26 shares remained unchanged.

Top gainers from the Sensex pack were, State Bank of India (up
3.49% at Rs 1,575), Jaiprakash Associates (up 3.19% at Rs 189.35),
Maruti Suzuki (up 2.40% at Rs 695.95), Bharat Heavy Electricals (up
2.38% at Rs 1,825.65), and Reliance Communication (up 2.29% at Rs
448.50).

India's largest private sector bank by market capitalisation ICICI
Bank rose 3.17% at Rs 752.

India's largest private sector firm by market capitalisation and
oil refiner Reliance Industries rose 1.93% at Rs 2,293.80.

India's second largest software exporter by sales Infosys
Technologies rose 2.03% at Rs 1,714.

Natural gas distributor Reliance Natural Resources was the top
traded counter on BSE. The stock rose 1.88% at Rs 105.65 on a
turnover of Rs 29.76 crore on BSE.

The Securities & Exchange Board of India (Sebi) will hold a board
meeting on Wednesday, 13 August 2008 to review FII regulations,
where it may revisit the norms relating to participatory notes and
securities lending and borrowing mechanism.