S&P rating helps bulls’ cause

Today's major news

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Post-market summary

Global signals

The European stocks rose in early trade on Friday, March 19, 2010, hitting a 17-month high, with banking shares trading higher. At the time of writing this report, FTSE 100 was trading 0.78% higher.

Asian indices across the spectrum — Nikkie to Straits Times to Kospi — closed higher. The SGX Nifty closed at 5268, up 13 points.

The US stock futures pointed to a mixed opening on the Wall Street on Friday.

Indian indices

Higher Dow Jones yesternight and strong Asian indices this morning helped Indian indices open a marginal 12 points up at 17531. Leveraging on previous two days’ gains, the market traded with a positive bias all through the day. Upgradation of India’s debt-rating outlook from “negative” to “stable” by Standard & Poor’s (S&P) rating services helped the cause. However, as aforesaid in the morning report, it languished within a tight band of 17502-17600 due to lack of triggers.

Buying in the Sensex components such as Reliance Industries and Bharti Airtel propelled the index to 17600 levels. The Sensex, which had gained nearly 380 points in the last three sessions, added 59 points to its kitty to close at 17,578 points. The Nifty closed 17 points up at 5263.

Market sentiment

The choppy session saw declining shares slightly outnumbering the advancing shares. Of 2,950 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,381 stocks (46.81%) advanced, whereas 1,459 (49.46%) stocks declined. Hundred and ten stocks remained unchanged.

Sectoral & stock screening

Despite trading in the narrow range, all the sectoral indices closed higher, except realty and IT. The BSE realty slid the most, by 0.95%, followed by BSE IT that down by 0.45%. The BSE Consumer Durables (CD) surged the most and topped the sectoral list by 1.09%, followed by BSE Oil & Gas that rose by 0.78%. Other sectors closed positive in the range of 0.16% - 0.57%.

The top-3 gainers were — Bharat Electronics that surged by 5.71%, Chambal Fertilisers that rose by 4% and Bharti Airtel that was up by 3.95%.
The top-3 losers were — Indiabulls Real Estate that slid by 3.06%, CESC that was down by 2.51% and IVRCL Infrastructure and Projects that declined by 2.43%.

Viewing volumes

The stocks that drew investors interest were — India’s second largest realty company, Unitech, was the most traded share with over 0.43 crore shares changing hands on the BSE, followed by Exide Industries (0.38 crore shares), wind power major — Suzlon Energy (0.33 crore shares), sugar manufacturer — Shree Renuka Sugars (0.24 crore shares) and natural resources company — Reliance Natural Resources (0.20 crore shares).