The Nifty’s next move is to 5,495 and then to 5,610

Sustained buying by institutional investors and a positive global trend led the market higher for the third successive day. This was also the third successive day that the Nifty made a higher high and higher low. We may now see the benchmark reaching the level of 5,495 and further to 5,610. The National Stock Exchange (NSE) saw a much higher volume of 80.09 crore shares, underlining bullishness.  

Extending its gains for the third day, the market opened on a firm note on positive cues from its Asian peers. The US markets closed flat ahead of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting, which is expected to announce its monetary policy decision later today. Back home, the Nifty opened at 5391, up 31 points over its previous close, and the Sensex gained 92 points to resume trade at 17680. The opening figures on both benchmarks were their intraday lows.

Across-the-board buying since the start of the session saw all sectoral gauged in the green in early trade. The market traded sideways in the positive for the entire session with the indices hitting their intraday highs in post-noon trade. At the highs, the Nifty touched 5,439 and the Sensex scaled 17,843.

The RBI’s move to boost liquidity through the CRR cut last week helped rate-sensitive sectors like metals, oil & gas, realty and power log good gains. The market finally closed near the highs of the day. The Nifty settled 70 points higher at 5,430 and the Sensex surged 226 points to end trade at 17,814.

The advance-decline ratio on the NSE was positive at 1203:590.

Among the broader indices, the BSE Mid-cap index gained 1.21% and the BSE Small-cap index rose 1.03%.

All sectoral indices settled higher today led by BSE Metal (up 3.01%). It was followed by BSE Oil & Gas (up 2.60%); BSE Realty (up 2.11%); BSE Power (up 1.52%) and BSE Capital Goods (up 1.51%).

Sterlite Industries (up 5.06%); GAIL India (up 4.50%); Jindal Steel (up 3.80%); ONGC (up 3.42%) and Reliance Industries (up 2.72%) were the top gainers on the Sensex. The major losers were Wipro (down 1.29%); Mahindra & Mahindra (down 1%); Bajaj Auto (down 0.43%); Tata Motors (down 0.21%) and ICICI Bank (down 0.01%).

The top performers on the Nifty were Sterlite Ind (up 5.18%); Sesa Goa (up 5.16%); SAIL (up 5.03%); GAIL India (up 4.53%) and Jaiprakash Associates (up 4.39%). The main laggards were Wipro (down 1.66%); M&M, Reliance Infrastructure (down 0.93% each); Tata Motors (down 0.49%) and HCL Technologies (down 0.07%).

Asian markets settled mostly higher on hopes that European policymakers will finalise a second bailout for Greece. Besides, likelihood of the US Fed keeping interest rates unchanged also supported investor sentiment.

 The Hang Seng climbed 0.97%; the Jakarta Composite rose 0.53%; the Nikkei 225 added 0.09%; the Straits Times gained 0.91%; the Seoul Composite advanced 1.13% and the Taiwan Weighted surged 1.31%. Bucking the trend, the Shanghai Composite lost 0.19% and the KLSE Composite settled 0.05% lower. At the time of writing, the key European markets were up between 0.77% and 1.11% on positive economic news from Germany. At the same time, the US stock futures were in the green, ahead of the Fed announcement.

Back home, institutional investors—both foreign and domestic—were net buyers in the equities segment on Monday. While foreign institutional investors invested Rs1,298.64 crore in stocks, domestic institutional investors pumped in Rs203.32 crore in shares.

IT major Infosys has signed a multi-year, multi-million dollar contract with pharma major GlaxoSmithKline to optimize digital channels across its global consumer healthcare and pharmaceuticals business lines. The partnership will simplify and improve effectiveness of how GSK delivers digital content online, it said on Tuesday. Infosys gained 1.51% to close at Rs2,860.05 on the NSE.

Tata group's retail arm Trent today said its board has approved a proposal to raise up to Rs250 crore through placement of shares with institutional investors. The company's board has decided to open a QIP (Qualified Institutional Placement) issue of Rs225 crore with an option of hiking the size up to Rs 250 crore in aggregate, by way of issue of equity shares, Trent said in a filing to the BSE. The stock closed 1.895 higher at Rs924 on the NSE.

Compucom Software has been awarded an ICT project by Bihar State Educational Infrastructure Development Corporation (BSEIDC), valued at Rs46.71 crore. The project is for providing computer education on BOOT basis in 336 government schools in the state. With this order, the company now has 6,418 government schools under its umbrella across north India. The stock closed at Rs12.30 on the NSE, down 1.20% over its previous close.