Nifty eyes 5300

Today's major news

Pratibha Industries secures Rs196.6 crore worth of orders; the stock closes 1.08% lower

Credit growth exceeds the central bank's target

Tata Motors to sell 20% in Telcon to Hitachi; the stock jumps 3.36%

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Post-market summary

Global signals

Drug makers and oil stocks dragged the European markets lower on Friday, as concerns continued on Greece debt crises. At the time of writing this report, FTSE 100 was down by 0.15%.

All the major Asian indices closed higher. Shanghai Composite, Nikkei and Hang Seng closed 1% up each. SGX Nifty closed 11 points higher.

US stock futures opened higher ahead of key data related to final estimate of Q4 gross domestic product (GDP) growth.

Indian indices

On the first day of April F&O contracts, which also happens to be last day of the week, ergo weekend drag, the market traded with in a band of around 125 points to end the session up—third day on trot. Absorbing concerns on Greece’ debt crisis, growing debate between the US and China on pricing of yuan, firm Asian markets combined with continuous buying in auto stocks on hope of a better Q4 earnings of auto companies help the market touch two-month high in today’s trade.

On buoyant leads from Asian markets, the Sensex opened flat, moved up and touched the day’s high of 17,683—124 higher than its yesterday’s closing and wrapped the session 86 points higher at 17645. The Nifty closed 22 points higher at 5282.

Market sentiment

Despite closing positive, the market breadth was negative as declining stocks outdid advancing stocks. Of the 2,935 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,651 stocks declined, whereas 1,197 stocks advanced. Eighty-seven stocks closed unchanged.

Sectoral & stock screening

Auto and banking stocks witnessed some investor interest with the BSE Auto and BSE Bankex up by 1.75% and 1.59% respectively. Information technology stocks have been under pressure and the sector index, BSE IT, was down by 0.67% for the day.

The star stock of the day was Indiabulls Real Estate that was up by 5.55%, followed by Bajaj Auto that surged 5.16% and Everest Kanto Cylinder that rose by 4.71%. On the other hand, Siemens slid the most by 2.31%, followed by Pantaloon Retail that fell by 2.27% and Dr Reddy’s Laboratories that shed 2.26%.

Viewing volumes

On the second straight day, Industrial finance company IFCI was the most actively traded share with over 0.67 crore shares changing hands on the BSE, followed by India’s second largest realty company Unitech (0.34 crore shares), steel major Ispat Industries (0.31 crore shares), wind turbine maker Suzlon Energy (0.29 crore shares) and Gujarat NRE Coke (0.27 crore shares).