Market seeks cues

Today's major news

Wipro set to launch $1billion sponsored ADR offering; the stock closes 0.89% lower

UCO Bank Q3 net up by 43%; the stock shoots up 5.68%

HDFC Bank Q3 net profit rises by 31.6%; the stock rises 0.33%

IDBI Bank Q3 bottom line up by 29%; the stock surges 0.72%

AXIS Bank Q3 surges 31%; the stock jumps 1.52%.

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Post-market summary

Global signals

European indices were trading marginally higher in morning trades, led by banking stocks. At the time of writing this report FTSE 100 was trading marginally higher by 0.17%.

Among major Asian indices, all the indices closed higher except Hang Seng and Straits Times that fell marginally. SGX Nifty closed 6 points lower.

US stock futures opened marginally lower on Thursday, as investors look forward to data related to industrial production for the month of December and capacity utilisation for the month of December.

Indian indices

The Sensex edged lower after moving between positive and negative territory earlier in the day. The Sensex that opened 20 points higher soon turned negative and swung between red and green. The day’s low was 17529, while the day’s high was 17640. At 17554, the Sensex closed the session 31 points lower. Nifty closed 8 points down at 5252.

Market sentiment

The market breadth was marginally negative. Of 2,994 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,508 stocks trailed whereas 1,420 stocks advanced. Sixty six stocks closed unchanged.

Sectoral & stock screening

Public sector units (PSU) drew bulls’ interest with the BSE PSU up by 2%. Realty scrips were also up with the BSE Realty up by meagre 0.73%. BSE Oil & Gas was down 0.94% followed by BSE CG that fell 0.60%.

Pubic sector entities were the star achievers of the day with Hindustan Copper up by 17.38% followed by NMDC up 12.23% and Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilisers that was up by 6.78%. United Spirits slid the most by 4.05%, followed by Rei Agro that fell by 3.32% and GTL Infrastructure that shed 2.80%.

Viewing volumes

Public sector bank UCO Bank was the most actively traded share with over 0.71 crore shares changing hands on the BSE followed by wind turbine maker Suzlon Energy (0.64 crore shares), Ispat Industries (0.56 crore shares), India’s leading telecom operator Reliance Communications (0.47 crore shares) and Reliance Natural Resources (0.42 crore shares).