Markets soar on tax reforms, global cues

Markets surged on Thursday, boosted by government's big bang tax reform plans and positive cues from the global markets. The government proposed to bring down corporate tax to 25%, and abolish Securities Transaction Tax.

Removing levy on the securities is likely to lead to higher volumes as the cost of transactions goes down.

The US Federal Reserve's decision to let interest rates remain unchanged and positive outlook of an economic recovery saw the market opening with a huge positive gap of 188 points at 15,208. Unabated buying thereafter saw the index rally to higher levels as the day progressed. Realty and metal stocks led the rally with significant gains.

The Sensex touched a high of 15,545 at the fag end of the day, and finally settled at 15,518 -- up 498 points.

The Nifty ended at 4,605 -- up 148 points. Earlier in the day, the index opened at 4,459 and touched a high of 4,614

The market breadth was extremely positive. Out of 2,794 stocks traded 2,215 advanced while only 517 declined.

INDEX MOVERS...

DLF soared over 7% to Rs 400. ICICI Bank and Maruti Suzuki rallied 6.5% each to Rs 757 and Rs 1,374, respectively.

Tata Steel, Tata Motors and Sterlite surged 6% each to Rs 471, Rs 473 and Rs 660, respectively. SBI, Larsen & Toubro, ITC, Hindalco, Hero Honda and Jaiprakash Associates added 4-5% each.

The other major gainers were Reliance Infrastructure, HDFC, Reliance Communications, ONGC, BHEL, ACC, Hindustan Unilever and Tata Power.

Among the other Nifty stocks, HCL Technologies zoomed 8% to Rs 283. Tata Communications rallied 6.5% to Rs 493.

Jindal Steel gained 5.7% at Rs 3,137. ABB, Nalco, Punjab National Bank and SAIL also moved up around 4% each.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS...

HDIL topped the combined value chart with a turnover of over Rs 931 crore, followed by Reliance (Rs 780.55 crore), Unitech (Rs 723.11 crore), DLF (Rs 667.51 crore) and Tata Steel (Rs 647.9 crore).

The combined volume chart was led by Firstsource with trades of over 82.41 million shares, followed by Unitech (76.38 million), IFCI (59.62 million), Suzlon (59.37 million) and Ispat Industries (56.88 million).