Markets on a uphill after 3-day fall

Major headlines

Lanco Infratech turns biggest private power firm

Jyothy Laboratories rises on buying Diamond Fabcare

Coal India hits 52-week high on price hike



Indian indices

It was a good day for the markets after three-day of successive losses. Supportive global cues and short covering lifted the markets higher. All-round buying led the Sensex and the Nifty to hit 18000 and 5400 levels respectively. The markets maintained its uptrend all throughout the day.

Heavy buying in heavyweights like Bharti Airtel, Reliance Industries, SBI, ITC, BHEL, HDFC, NTPC, L&T, ONGC and Maruti Suzuki too helped the markets.

Acropetal Tech, Coal India, Fineotex Chemical, State Bank of India, VIP Industries, ICICI Bank and Tata Motors were the most active shares on the exchanges.

Strong global cues led the Sensex higher by 90 points at 17929 in the opening trade. After few minutes of trade, the index hit the day’s low of 17879. From that level, the Sensex inched higher and hit the day’s high of 18041 in mid-morning trade. Strong trade continued in the afternoon session owing to buying in all the sectors. The Sensex rose 149 points to close at 17988 and the Nifty settled at 5414, up by 49 points.

Market sentiment

The market breadth was strong. Of the 2,983 stocks on the BSE, 1,555 advanced while 1,294 fell. However, 134 stocks remained unchanged.

Sectoral and stock screening

All the 13 sectoral indices ended the session in the positive territory. BSE Realty stood the top performer surging by 2.19%, BSE Auto rose by 1.53% and BSE Healthcare (HC) advanced by 1.10%. Remaining indices ended higher in the range of 0.39-1.08%.

Coming to 'A' group stocks, top three gainers were - Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services rose by 6.28%, Lanco Infratech surged by 5.91% and Neyveli Lignite advanced by 4.92%. Top three losers were - Godrej Consumer Products slipped by 2.36%, Sun TV Network declined by 2.16% and Central Bank of India declined by 1.75%.

Viewing volumes

Leading infrastructure firm - Lanco Infratech was traded the most, with over 1.25 crore shares changing hands on the BSE. It was followed by industrial finance company - IFCI (0.21 crore shares), leading construction firm - Hindustan Construction Company (0.21 crore shares), Jaypee group flagship company - Jaiprakash Associates (0.20 crore shares) and India's second largest real estate developer - Unitech (0.20 crore shares).

Global signals

European shares pared gains on Tuesday, after the US military said a fighter jet had crashed in Libya overnight, prompting a fresh bout of investor jitters.

All the major Asian indices ended in the positive territory on Tuesday except Jakarta Composite. Japan’s Nikkei index rose over 4%.

The US stock index futures point to a higher opening on the Wall Street on Tuesday.