Sensex up for third day, ends 145 points higher

It was a third straight day gains for markets owing to continuous buying in realty, auto and capital goods stocks coupled with supportive global cues
Major headlines

Food inflation rises to 10.05% versus 9.42%

JSW Steel raises offer price for Ispat

Godrej Household’s license to sell Kiwi terminated



Indian indices

The Indian markets continued to post gains for the third day in a row buoyed by positive global cues and sustained buying in realty, auto and capital goods shares. Markets remained in the positive mode, ignoring a surge in food inflation. Nifty closed above the 5500 level for the first time in last six sessions.

Positive global cues lifted the Sensex 80 points higher at 18286 in the opening trade and after few minutes hit the day’s high of 18374. The Sensex remained rangebound and traded in green as the session progressed. In the afternoon trade, the index touched the day’s low of 18269 as the Europeans market opened in negative territory. The Sensex settled at 18351, up by 145 points and the Nifty closed 42 points higher at 5522.

Bond and Rupee update: India’s 11-year bonds gained for a third day, pushing yields to a one-week low, on speculation that banks are purchasing more debt as the quarter ends to comply with a government regulation.

The rupee advanced to its strongest level in almost three months after global funds added to holdings of Indian assets to benefit from growth in Asia’s third-biggest economy.

Market sentiment

The market breadth was strong for the third straight session. Of the 2,998 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,559 surged while 1,259 declined. However, 140 stocks closed unchanged.

Sectoral and stock screening

Except BSE Oil & Gas and BSE Health Care (HC) that fell 0.25% and 0.09% respectively, all the sectoral indices ended the session in green. BSE Realty was the topper for the third day on trot, gaining by 2.83%, followed by BSE Auto up by 1.40% and BSE Capital Goods (CG) rose by 1.27%.

Coming to 'A' group stocks’, top three gainers - Unitech surged by 9.51%, Castrol India rose by 5.81% and Aban Offshore jumped by 5.31%. Top three losers - Engineers India slid by 4.30%, Bajaj Finserv declined by 2.69% and Tata Communications lost by 2.64%.

Viewing volumes

India's second largest real estate developer - Unitech was traded the most, with over 1.39 crore shares changing hands on the BSE. It was followed by wind turbine major - Suzlon Energy (0.45 crore shares), Jaypee Group flagship company - Jaiprakash Associates (0.23 crore shares), leading oil exploration firm - Hindustan Oil Exploration (0.19 crore shares) and leading infrastructure firm - Lanco Infratech (0.17 crore shares).

Global signals

European shares edged higher on Thursday, lifted by gains in retailers after upbeat results in the sector, though low volumes showed investors stayed on the sidelines as caution over the euro zone debt crisis lingered.

The major Asian indices closed in the positive zone on Thursday except Japan’s Nikkei and China’s Shanghai Composite.

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