Fed’s low-rate pledge buoys markets

Today's major news

Hindustan Unilever plans legal action against strikers at Haldia; the stock slides 1.28%

Reliance Industries eyes JV with Atlas Energy for Marcellus Shale; the stock is down by 0.02%

L&T gets Rs1013 crore order from ONGC; the stock surges 1.62%

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Post-market summary

Global signals

The European markets were higher in the early trades on Wednesday, March 17, 2010, with banks benefiting from the US Federal Reserve's (Fed) move to keep the interest rates near zero for an extended period. At the time of writing this report, FTSE 100 was trading 0.60% higher.

All the Asian indices closed higher on Fed’s move. SGX Nifty closed 36 points higher.

US stock futures opened higher on Wednesday indicating a higher opening on the Wall Street.

Indian indices

Stocks continued to move up on the Fed’s and Japan’s decision to keep interest rates unchanged. On strong global cues, the benchmark indices extended their gains. The Indian indices opened almost flat at 17389, up by 6 points and did not see those levels again. In today’s session, BSE PSU, BSE HC and BSE Metal witnessed heavy buying.

In the mid session, the Sensex stood by near 1% to the two-month high at 17,550 levels and touched the day’s high at 17576, while the broad-based NSE index Nifty advanced by near 1.1% to 5,250. At the closing, the market erased some of its earlier gains, as the Sensex components like Maruti Suzuki, HUL and Tata Power under performed. The Sensex closed the session at 17490, 107 points or 0.61% higher, while Nifty finished the day at 5231, 34 points or 0.65% higher.

Market sentiment

The equities were witnessing a tremendous buying activity after the US and Japan decided to keep interest rates unchanged. Of the 2,928 shares traded on the BSE, 1250 (42%) shares advanced whereas 1586 (54%) shares declined, while ninety-two shares remained unchanged.

Sectoral & stock screening

All the 13 sectoral indices closed higher, except realty, auto, FMCG and consumer durables that fell for the day. PSU index topped the gainers list that was energised by ONGC, one of the 30-share index of Sensex that lifted the index by 2.04%, followed by Health Care index that rose by 1.66%.

The top 3 gainers included Hindustan Copper that rose by 18.71%, followed by NMDC that surged by 8.87% and MMTC that was up by 4.61%.
The top 3 losers included Shree Renuka Sugars that slid the most by 3.61%, followed by Jet Air India that was down by 3.30% and United Spirits that declined by 3.29%.

Viewing volumes

India’s second largest realty company, Unitech, was the most traded share with over 0.52 crore shares changing hands on the BSE, followed by steel maker — Ispat Industries (0.48 crore shares), wind power major — Suzlon Energy (0.44 crore shares), natural resources company — Reliance Natural Resources (0.34 crore shares) and copper maker — Hindustan Copper (0.31 crore shares).