Just five companies of the BSE Sensex constituents have contributed more than 50% of the post-Budget rally in the benchmark index. The Budget was presented on February 26 and ever since the Sensex has gained nearly 8% or 1,236 points to close at 17,490 on Wednesday, hitting an eight-week high.

Leading from the front in rally were Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) and ICICI Bank, adding together over 375 points to the Sensex. That constitutes 30% of the overall Sensex gain. RIL, which has the highest weightage of 13.15% among the constituents, has added over 227.41 points. ICICI Bank has added another 127 points.

The other top contributors were Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC) with 92 points, Infosys Technologies with 82 points and Larsen and Toubro (L&T) with 63 points. In contrast, HUL and ONGC were lagging, pulling Sensex down by 17 and 19 points, respectively. Interestingly, 28 out of 30 stocks were gainers in the post-Budget rally.

All these top gainers have strong fundamentals but remained on the sidelines ahead of the Budget, since fresh allocation of funds from overseas investors were not taking place, said Deven Choksey, MD, KR Choksey Securities.

He also added that the market is expecting RIL fourth quarter results to be better in view of the higher advance tax paid by the company. The company had paid Rs 770 crore as advance tax for the March quarter compared to Rs 365 crore a year ago.

Since February 25, stock prices of RIL has surged 13% while that of ICICI Bank gained 11.48%. During the period comprising 11 trading sessions, FIIs have purchased Indian equities worth Rs 13,000 crore; the highest monthly inflow (for March 2010 till date) since September 2009, when they invested Rs 18,344 crore.

On Wednesday, the BSE Sensex extended its rally by another 107 points or 0.61% to end the trading session at 17,490 while the NSE Nifty closed at 5,232, gaining 0.65% or 34 points.

The turnover on the NSE derivative segment shot up 23% to Rs 98,323 crore from the previous days turnover of Rs 79,943 crore.