Mumbai, Jul 14: Shrugging off the bomb blasts that shook India's financial capital yesterday, Dalal Street today was resilient, with BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty ending in the positive territory.
Market observers said the terror strike had “little” impact on bourses as both domestic and foreign investors remained optimistic about strength and vibrancy of the Indian market to get over such condemnable act. Multiple blasts rocked had Mumbai yesterday leaving at least 18 people dead and 100 injured.
The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and the National Stock Exchange (NSE) opened at their scheduled time and it was business as usual though beginning was subdued. Analysts said the early morning loss was not because of the last evening's terror attack and the markets opened weak largely because of weak cues from other Asian markets.
“Yesterday's terror attack had not much of an impact on today's market movement. Market opened on a lower note on the back of weak Asian cues. Life has got back to normal in Mumbai,” Way2Wealth Brokers COO Ambareesh Baliga said.
After a choppy trade that saw the benchmark index swinging wildly by over 350 points, the Sensex ended the day at 18,618.20 points, up 22 points from its last close. Wide-based Nifty closed higher by 14 points at 5599.80.
“Indian markets have historically been very resilient to such unfortunate incidents. Indian markets are strong, vibrant and on a long-term growth trajectory on the back of growing GDP,” Destimoney Securities chief Sudip Bandyopadhyay said.
Home Minister P Chidambaram said that attacks were not aimed at financial markets and that high population density were chosen as targets.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said such cowardly acts cannot impact India's march towards a robust economic growth.
“(I am) fully confident that our economy and markets will rise above this incident and continue to show robust growth,” “The city was not totally paralysed because of the terror attack which is why the stock market started operation on a normal note,” Baliga noted.
Recalling the serial blasts of 2008 in the country's financial hub, Baliga said that the markets bore a dim look initially at that time, but later bounced back.
“The attacks are not going to fundamentally damage anything. Historically, whenever there are such attacks, markets have generally bounced back and closed in the positive zone,” Ashika Stock Brokers Research Head Paras Bothra said.
Time and again it has been witnessed that such terror strikes did not have any material impact on stock markets, as they cannot dent the general functioning of the economy.
In July 11, 2006, when explosions on passenger trains in the city killed 187 people and injured more than 800, the country's benchmark sensitive index Sensex closed with gains of 315 points at 10,930.04 points the following day.
Similar was the case during the November 26, 2008 attack, when gunmen targeted luxury hotels, including Taj Mahal Palace & Tower and Oberoi, a railway station and a Jewish centre. In the following trading session (November 28, 2008) Sensex closed higher by 66 points at 9,092.72 points. PTI
