Yesterday we mentioned that Nifty is headed for 6,080 but the market is vulnerable to a sharp decline

Upbeat quarterly performance by TCS and gains in realty, banking and FMCG stocks enabled the volatile market close higher for the second day in a row. However, the market is in a continued risky uptrend. Yesterday we mentioned that Nifty is headed for 6,080 but the market is vulnerable to a sharp decline. The National Stock Exchange (NSE) reported a volume of 69.76 crore shares and advance-decline ratio of 845:861.

The market opened firm on the back of better-than-expected quarterly earnings announced by IT major TCS after the market closed yesterday. On the global front, Asian markets were mixed in morning trade on concerns about the corporate earnings. Overnight markets in the US ended flat on reports that Apple Inc cut orders for parts for the iPhone5 due to weak demand.

Back home, the Nifty opened 14 points up at 6,308 and the Sensex started the day at 20,000, a gain of 94 points over its previous close. However, the benchmarks could not sustain the gains and were soon trending lower, albeit still in the positive. Range-bound trade followed amid strong volatility.

The market dipped into the red to touch their lows in noon trade on selling pressure in healthcare, PSU, power and oil & gas stocks. At this point the Nifty slipped to 6,019 and the Sensex dropped to 19,882.

The fall was temporary as the benchmarks picked up momentum once again on buying support from realty, fast moving consumer goods, banking and consumer durables sectors. The upmove the market to its intraday high in the last hour wherein the Nifty climbed to 6,069 and the Sensex surged to 20,037.

A small bout of profit taking towards the close of the trading session resulted in the market settling off the highs. The Nifty settled 33 points (0.54%) higher at 6,057 and the Sensex posted a gain of 80 points (0.40%) to finish the session at 19,987, off the 20,000 mark breached earlier.

While the Sensex continued its gains for the second day, the broader indices closed on a mixed note. The BSE Mid-cap index gained 0.27% and the BSE Small-cap index lost 0.06%.

The top sectoral gainers were BSE Realty (up 1.05%); BSE Bankex (up 0.72%); BSE Fast Moving Consumer Goods (up 0.59%); BSE TECk (up 0.58%) and BSE Consumer Durables (up 0.45%). BSE Metal (down 0.30%) and BSE IT (down 0.23%) ended lower.

Fifteen of the 30 stocks on the Sensex closed in the positive. The chief gainers were Bharti Airtel (up 4.81%); ITC (up 1.98%); ICICI Bank (up 1.53%); Tata Power (up 1.51%) and Bajaj Auto (up 1.07%). The main losers were Coal India (down 1.54%); Sterlite Industries (down 1.31%); Jindal Steel (down 0.74%); Sun Pharmaceutical Industries (down 0.66%) and Infosys (down 0.62%).

The top two A Group gainers on the BSE were—Idea Cellular (up 8.27%) and Berger Paints (up 7.91%).

The top two A Group losers on the BSE were—Jaiprakash Power Ventures (down 4.82%) and United Breweries (down 3.93%).

The top two B Group gainers on the BSE were—Shalimar Paints (up 19.98%) and Beryl Drugs (up 16.67%).

The top two B Group losers on the BSE were—Ari Consolidated Investments (down 20.70%) and Vikas Globalone (down 18.70%).

Out of the 50 stocks listed on the Nifty, 29 stocks settled in the positive. The major gainers were Bharti Airtel (up 5.23%); Ambuja Cement (up 4.03%); BPCL (up 3.39%); Axis Bank (up 3.02%) and UltraTech Cement (up 2.88%). The main losers were Sesa Goa (down 1.70%); Coal India (down 1.21%); HCL Technologies (down 1.16%); Asian Paints (down 0.95%) and Reliance Infrastructure (down 0.81%).

Markets in Asia pared their early gains and settled mostly lower following a warning from US Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke about the fragility of the country’s economic growth and the possible default on its debt.

The Hang Seng declined 0.14%; the Jakarta Composite fell 0.10%; the KLSE Composite lost 0.03%; the Straits Times dropped 0.68%; the Seoul Composite tanked 1.16% and the Taiwan Weighted settled 0.75% lower. Among the gainers, the Shanghai Composite gained 0.60% and the Nikkei 225 climbed 0.72%.

At the time of writing, two of the three main markets in Europe were in the positive while the US stock futures were marginally lower.

Back home, foreign institutional investors were net buyers of shares totalling Rs611.10 crore on Monday whereas domestic institutional investors were net sellers of equities totalling Rs1,210.55 crore.

A consortium led by state-owned Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilisers is in talks with Canada-based Encanto Potash for a long term supply agreement of 2 million tonnes per annum of potash. RCF said Encanto Potash Corp has offered a discount of 8% on ruling market rate of muriate of potash (MoP) to India during the preliminary talks held in December, 2012. RCF settled 0.72% lower at Rs54.90 on the NSE.

Essar Oil today returned to black with a net profit of Rs32 crore in the December quarter and said it had received the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) approval to raise $2.2 billion foreign currency loans to refinance expensive rupee debt. The stock fell 0.14% to close at Rs73.15 on the NSE.

CK Birla group company Hindustan Motors (HM) is open to talks with other auto-makers for utilising the surplus capacity at its Chennai plant which was de-merged recently, a top company official has said. While the Chennai facility has a capacity of

24,000 units per annum, the plant is currently nearly 2,000 units of SUVs, namely Pajero and Outlander. The stock rose 6.14% to close at Rs12.10 on the NSE.