budget 2010 Impact: The Street Cheers;Nifty Ends Up 62.55 at 4922

         Muted global cues saw the Sensex open on a flat note at 16,255 ahead of the Union Budget 2010. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee's Budget speech boosted market sentiment, and various positive measures saw the index zoom to a high of 16,669 - an intra-day gain of 420 points. Some profit-taking at higher levels saw the Sensex finally closed with a gain of 175 points (1.08%) at 16,430. The Nifty was up 62 points at 4,922.

All the sectoral indices, except the FMCG index, closed with gains. The BSE Auto index moved up nearly 5%. The BSE FMCG index was down over 2%. Breadth was bullish - out of over 2,870 scrips traded, over 1,845 logged gains.

Tata Motors zoomed over 6% to Rs 711. M&M and Hero Honda were up 5% each at Rs 1,007 and Rs 1,772, respectively. Maruti was up over 4% at Rs 1,463.

Reliance, Hindalco, Sterlite, SBI and L&T also closed with gains.

ITC dropped over 6% to Rs 232 after the Budget hiked the excise duty on tobacco products. Tata Power, BHEL, TCS and Infosys also declined.

Total market turnover (BSE+NSE) was over Rs 1.40 lakh crore, which was above the five-day average. Reliance Capital, which could be a beneficiary due to the proposed opening up of the banking sector, was the most active counter on the BSE with a turnover of Rs 305 crore followed by SBI (Rs 210 crore) and Ranbaxy (Rs 163 crore).

Budget Impact: Fuel prices to be hiked

Oil marketing companies may hike petrol and diesel prices by Rs 2.5/litre effective today.

Budget 2010 had announced an excise hike of Re 1 per litre on petrol and diesel.

While the petrol price hike is expected to be Rs 2.67 per litre, diesel price may be hiked by Rs 2.58 per litre.