Bulls gets festive; Nifty flirts with 5200

Today's major news

RIL out of race for Canada's Value Creation; the stock spurts 3.80%

Tata Steel may up prices on input cost pressure; the stock rises by 2.82%

Central Bank to buy back mortgage finance subsidiary; the stock is up by 1.26%

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Post-market summary

Global signals

On Tuesday, March 16, 2010, the European stocks were higher in early trades, with financials advancing ahead of the outcome of the US Federal Reserve's policy meeting later in the session. At the time of writing this report, FTSE 100 was trading 0.64% higher.

The Asian indices ended the day on a mix trend. SGX Nifty closed 67 points higher.

US stock futures opened marginally higher on Tuesday ahead of the Federal Reserve meeting, on expectation that the policy makers will keep interest rates very low for a long time.

Indian indices

After having lacklustre sessions post the Budget, wherein the markets remained range-bound and the Nifty was not able to break the strong resistance of 5200, today, the heavy buying in the index heavyweights helped to bring in bulls on the festive day. Today, being the first day of the Chaitra month, and is celebrated as New Year's Day by Maharashtrians, the markets made a good come back after a long time. The Sensex had a marginally positive start to open at 17169, up five points on the back of the positive Asian cues. In the morning trade, the market was just losing its momentum and started to erase its gains gradually. The equities were witnessing a choppy session in the absence of triggers to drive it in either direction.

Oil & gas, and capital goods were the top performing sectorals indices while banks and FMCG slipped lower, till mid-after-noon. On the news that the Energy major, Reliance Industries, the30-benchmark index component, was out of race for the Canadian firm Value Creation, which it had bid for $2 billion, the company surged 3.80%. The markets took a sharp U-turn and the bulls helped to touch the day’s high at 17416. The Sensex ended the session 218 points higher, at 17383, while the Nifty finished at 5198, 69 points higher.


Market sentiment

The heavy buying activity was seen in the oil & gas sector. Of the 2,902 shares traded on the BSE, 62% (1818) shares advanced whereas 35% (1026) shares declined, while seventy-six shares remained unchanged.

Sectoral & stock screening

All the 13 sector indices closed higher, except fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) and PSU that fell marginally. Oil & Gas index leads the gainers chart, fueled by the Sensex heavyweight Reliance Industries that helped the index to spurt 2.78%, followed by metal that surged 1.73%.

The spurt in volumes helped Jai Corp to top the gainers list, surged by 13.43%, followed by Mahindra & Mahindra Finance that rose by 5.49% and Educomp Solutions that rose by 5.47%. The loser’s for the day were, NMDC that slid 3.16%, followed by Hindustan Copper that declined 2.82%, and Nestle India that closed 2.26% lower.

Viewing volumes

The continuous buying in Reliance Natural Resources (top gainer in the oil & gas sector), was the most traded share with over 0.52 crore shares changing hands on the BSE, followed by sugar manufacturer — Shree Renuka Sugars (0.45 crore shares), wind power major — Suzlon Energy (0.44 crore shares), India’s second largest realty company — Unitech (0.37 crore shares) and Jai Corp (0.31 crore shares).