Sensex up 299 pts, closes at 9,370

The markets finally shrugged off the Satyam shock on Wednesday with benchmark Sensex recording a gain of nearly 300 points on buying support, led by market leader Reliance Industries and blue-chips Reliance Communication Infosys Technologies.

The BSE barometer, which had lost nearly 17 percent in a string of losses since January 7 when Satyam fraud came to light, today jumped 299.13 points to close at 9,370.49.

Similarly, the wide-based National Stock Exchange index Nifty also shot up by 90.35 points at 2813.45.

Reliance Communications soared 10.38 percent to come out as the biggest gainer among the Sensex stocks today. Reliance Industries, the most valued private sector company, surged nine percent as the stock looked more attractive following reports that promoters have increased their stake in the company to over 49 percent as of December quarter.

IT bellwether Infosys which yesterday posted over 33 percent growth for the December quarter rose for the second day in succession. With today's gain of 6.07 percent, the software company has jumped over 12 percent in two days. Mahindra & Mahindra, which launched the multipurpose vehicle Xylo was the another prominent gainer at 5.39 percent.

RIL and Infosys together carry nearly 23 percent weightage on the Sensex.

Expectations of further fall in inflation, the weekly data for which will be announced tomorrow, and firm global trend weres other boosting factors for the equity markets.

Among sectoral indices, Oil & Gas index was the best performer today at 5.85 percent, followed by IT index at 5.02 percent. Tech, reatly and metal indices also closed higher in the range of over 4 percent.