The market notched handsome all-round gains, mainly supported by a global rally. The gains, for the second day in a row, came a day ahead of the RBI’s quarterly policy review. On Friday we had mentioned that the Nifty may head higher if the day’s low holds. Today the index managed to make a higher high and higher low. The fall from the high of 5,258 on 19 July to the low of 5,032 on 26 July has been covered up to the extent of around 80% after positive move of today. If the benchmark manages to close above 5,258 we may see the upmove sustaining. The percentage gain on the Sensex (1.81%) and the Nifty (1.96%) has been the highest since 29 June 2012. However, volumes were low—just 53.19 crore shares were traded on the National Stock Exchange (NSE).
The market witnessed a gap up opening on positive cues from the Asian bourses, which were in the green in morning trade. Investors across the globe are hoping that central banks in the US and Europe would announce new measures to boost their economies. Similarly, Indian investors await the Reserve Bank of India’s quarterly policy review, scheduled for Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the Nifty opened at 5,130, up 30 points over its previous close, and the Sensex started off 80 points higher at 16,919. The opening figures on both benchmarks were their day’s lows.
The indices began their upmove with early support from banking and realty sectors. The market was range-bound till noon trade with the benchmarks retaining their early gains.
Across-the-board buying, supported by a green opening of the key European indices, saw the market extending its gains in subsequent trade. Gains in banking majors like SBI, ICICI and Axis helped the indices gain further momentum.
The market hit the day’s high in the last half hour with the Nifty touching 5,207 and the Sensex scaling 17,164.
The benchmarks settled marginally off the highs. At the close, the Nifty gained 100 points (1.96%) to 5,200 and the Sensex surged 304 points (1.81%) to finish trade at 17,144.
The advance-decline ratio on the NSE was positive at1064:623.
Among the broader indices, the BSE Mid-cap index surged 1.53% and the BSE Small-cap index climbed 1.29%.
Today’s rally resulted in all sectoral gauges settling in the positive. The top gainers were BSE Power (up 3.58%); BSE Realty (up 3.13%); BSE Capital Goods (up 3%); BSE Bankex (up 2.67%) and BSE Consumer Durables (up 2.53%).
The Sensex was led by State Bank of India (up 4.63%); Tata Motors (up 4.16%); Tata Power (up 4.12%); ICICI Bank (up 3.89%) and BHEL (up 3.82%). The losers on the index were ONGC (down 0.31%); Hindustan Unilever (down 0.02%) and Wipro (down 0.01%).
The top two A Group gainers on the BSE were—Suzlon Energy (up 11.37%) and IRB Infrastructure Developers (up 10.71%).
The top two A Group losers on the BSE were—Bharat Electronics (down 6.86%) and Opto Circuits (down 1.67%).
The top two B Group gainers on the BSE were—SpiceJet (up 22.42%) and Minaxi Textiles (up 20%).
The top two B Group losers on the BSE were—Murli Industries (down 12.63%) and Nutraplus Products (India) (down 11.38%).
The top gainers on the Nifty were Reliance Infrastructure (up 5.54%); Jaiprakash Associates (up 5.23%); Cairn India (up 5.16%); IDFC (up 4.54%) and SBI (up 4.53%). Ambuja Cements (down 1.21%); Hindustan Unilever (down 0.13%); HCL Technologies (down 0.12%) and ONGC (down 0.02%) settled lower on the index.
Markets in Asia, with the exception of the Shanghai Composite, closed in the positive on hopes of fresh stimulus to boost sagging economies across the world. The US Federal Reserve is set to hold its two-day meeting from Tuesday while the European Central Bank will hold a policy meeting on Thursday.
The Hang Seng jumped 1.61%; the Jakarta Composite rose 0.37%; KLSE Composite gained 0.46%; the Nikkei 225 climbed 0.80%; the Straits Times surged 1.14%; the Seoul Composite advanced 0.80% and the Taiwan Weighted settled 0.48% higher. Bucking the trend, the Shanghai Composite declined 0.89%.
At the time of writing, the CAC 40 of France was 0.65% higher, the German DAC gained 0.85% and UK’s FTSE 100 was up by 0.58%. On the hand, US stock futures were in the negative.
Back home, foreign institutional investors were net buyers of shares totalling Rs563.73 crore on Friday while domestic institutional investors were net sellers of stocks amounting to Rs254.44 crore.
SKS Microfinance has sought shareholders’ approval for shifting the registered office from Andhra Pradesh to Maharashtra. The Hyderabad-based company has served a postal ballot notice to the shareholders in this regard, according to a disclosure to the Bombay Stock Exchange. Citing the AP Microfinance (Regulation of Moneylending) Act, 2010 and subsequent halt to MFI operations in the state, SKS said the proposal to move out of AP was “to explore new areas of business”. The stock jumped 7.25% to close at Rs88.80 on the NSE.
Hinduja Group flagship Ashok Leyland is in the process of entering into at least three overseas joint ventures in the next two to three months, as it looks to consolidate its presence in new geographies. The company is in the final stages of inking joint ventures in Indonesia, Chile and Nigeria, keeping the majority holding in each of these partnerships. The stock gained 4.24% to close at Rs22.15 on the NSE.
