Market upbeat on IIP numbers

It was a pre-Diwali celebration for the Indian stock market as it registered massive gains despite the mixed bag performance by the Asian indices in today's trade. However the impact of better-than-expected index of industrial production (IIP) numbers for August 2009 doubled with the positive opening of the European indices. On Friday, the US market had closed on a positive note, while European markets (FTSE) today opened higher and was trading stronger at 5218 that is about 63 points over its previous closing. However, Asian indices like Taiwan weighted and Straits Times ended the day with strong gains of 0.37% and 1.05%, while Hang Seng and Jakarta Composite closed lower by 0.93% and 0.72% respectively on their previous closing.

The benchmark BSE- 30 (the Sensex) that ended on a negative note last week despite positive global cues, today opened at 16687, 44.66 points higher over its previous closing owing to cues from Asian indices. However, on the back of double digit IIP growth for August 2009 that stood at 10.4% as compared to the revised 7.2% growth for the month of July 2009, the market witnessed heavy buying in the consumer durables (CD), information technology (IT) and banking space that pushed the Sensex to hit the day’s high of 17068 during the course of the day. The industrial output growth in August 2009 surged to 10.4% due to the base effect and the revival in the economy. The Sensex ended the day at 17026 with massive gains of 384 points, while Nifty rose by 109 points to close above 5000-mark and ended the day at 5054. The Singapore Nifty closed 124 points higher to its previous day’s closing settlement price. The market breadth was positive as out of the 2,829 stocks traded on the BSE 1,627 stocks advanced, whereas 1,108 stocks declined. Ninety four stocks ended unchanged.

All the sectoral indices on the BSE ended in the positive zone. BSE CD rose the most with gains of 3.72%, while BSE IT, BSE Bankex, BSE TECk, BSE Oil & Gas, BSE FMCG and BSE Metal surged by over 2% each. BSE Realty, BSE Auto, BSE Power, BSE HC and BSE CG traded higher by more than 1% each. It was only BSE PSU that registered a rise of less than 1%. On the stocks front, Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services led the list of top gainers surging by 12.73% to Rs248.45 followed by Lanco Infrastructure that rose 9.30% to Rs520.70 and India Infoline that jumped by 6.23% to Rs150.90. Indian Hotels Company, Crompton Greaves, Dabur India, Lupin, Reliance Natural Resources, State Bank of India, Indian Bank and Reliance Infrastructure gained over 5% each. Among losers, EIH fell the most by 6.55% to Rs128.45 followed by Exide Industries that declined by 4.08% to Rs96.35, while Castrol India, Ultratech Cement and Indiabulls Real Estate lost over 2% each.

On turnover front, Over 1.16 crore shares of Reliance Natural Resources changed hands on the BSE followed by Ispat Industries (1.03 crore shares), Unitech (0.75 crore shares), Reliance Communications (0.48 crore shares) and Suzlon Energy (0.38 crore shares).