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The New Year celebrations are continuing in the stock markets with bench mark sensex scaling a new high of 20465.3 points at closing level on the Bombay stock exchange. Led by blue chip stocks HDFC, Tata Motors and Reliance Energy the 30 share BSE barometer added 164.59 points today over its previous close of 20300.71 points to set the new closing level record.  

The index touched the day’s high of 20529.48 points and a low of 20077.4 points. The Sensex also hit an all time intra trade high of 20529.48. The broader S&P CNX Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) also jumped 35.05 points to close at a new life-time high of 6179.4 from previous close of 6144.35. 

The market surged in the late afternoon trade on sustained across the board value buying from investors after showing some pressure due to weakness in Asian markets, which were down in the range of about 1.0 to 2.3 percent at close.  The market breadth was strong following widespread gains in the small cap and the mid cap shares.

However, analysts said the market has reached the 20,500 resistance level and is expected to correct downwards. Crediting the upsurge to technical factors, brokers said there was shortage of scripts while liquidity remained comfortable in the market. 

Today’s rally was led by banks and realty sector with their indices moving up by 3.13 percent and 2.93 per cent respectively. Stocks of the country’s largest private sector lender ICICI bank surged by 2.88%. BSE Bankex rose to 11, 870.49while the realty index was up at 13,419.67 points.  

At the same time, market regulator SEBI today ruled out relaxing norms on independent directors for public sector companies, saying corporate governance norms help boost confidence of investors in India Inc.

Contesting the views of ONGC chairman R.S. Sharma that the norms, as contained in the Clause 49 of the listing agreement, come in the way of level-playing field between PSUs and private players, SEBI chairman M. Damodaran said they are same for all companies.Under Clause 49, it is binding upon the listed companies to fill 50 per cent of their boards with independent directors in case they have executive chairman and one-third in case they have non-executive chairman. 

“The solution suggested that corporate governance requirement should be less for PSUs is something I cannot persuade myself to agree with,” Damodaran said.

Notwithstanding the difficulties that PSUs face, solution must be found somewhere else and not in diluting corporate governance norms. The ONGC chairman said the oil navratna was unable to comply with Clause 49 as it requires government approval, which takes a long time.