A good day for Asian stocks

Mumbai Sensex ended 45 pts (0.37%) higher on wednesday following a firm trend in Tokyo's Nikkei and Hong Kong's Hang Seng. Nikkei 225 gained 2.51% to finish at 15,947.87 - this is its biggest single day gain in two months. The Hang Seng index rose 1.23% to 17,521.51. US stocks posted handsome gains on Tuesday as investors cheered the strong consumer confidence report. Dow Jones closed at 11,669 (its highest level in more than six years) and Nasdaq Composite at 2,261.

In Mumbai, Wednesday was a day of sustained buying by funds in blue chip stocks, despite some volatility just ahead of the month's futures contract expiry. The September futures contracts are due for expiry this Thursday. Sensex had touched an intra-day high of 12,442.82, before selling began in afternoon trade taking it to an intra-day low of 12,339.98 and finally settled at 12,366.91.

The major gainers on Sensex were Reliance Energy (+3.88% after a long period of range-bound movements), Maruti (+1.79%), HDFC (+1.78%), Cipla (+1.75%) and ICICI Bank (+1.34%). Major losers were Hero Honda (-1.37%), Wipro (-1.16%), L&T (-1.08%), Tata Motors (-0.89%) and Satyam (-0.87%).