Sensex swings to earnings beat...Ends nearly flat

It was a soft start to the week as far as the Indian equity markets are concerned with the main equity benchmarks settling almost unchanged at the end of a choppy Monday trade. Lots of corporate results were announced throughout the session, which kept a lid on decisive price movement. Sun Pharma and Coal India shares gained after earnings announcements while that of banking titan SBI and steel major SAIL fell.

After opening on a flat note the indices slipped into a narrow trading range and struggled for direction in the first half. However, after hitting an intra-day low of 5351, the Nifty showed some signs of recovery in the afternoon trade and went on to hit new intraday high. The Nifty finally ended off day’s high.



Today’s lackluster trading session came despite Greek parliament ratifying the austerity measures demanded by Eurozone finance ministers. In addition, violence broke out in Greece ahead of the vote on the bill which contains €3.3bn (US$4.35bn) in wage, pension and job cuts this year, according to reports. Greece faces a major bond redemption on March 20.

In Asia, most markets closed in the positive terrain. The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong ended higher by 0.5% and the Nikkei index in Japan rose 0.6%. Chinese stocks finished almost unchanged.

While in Europe, the FTSE index in UK was up 0.8%, while the DAX index in Germany rose 0.6% and the CAC index in France was up 0.6%.

Finally, the Sensex ended at 17,773, up 24 points or 0.2% from the last close. It earlier touched a day's high of 17,850 and day's low of 17,665.

The Nifty settled at 5,390, up 9 points or ~0.2%. It hit a day’s high of 5,421 and day’s low of 5,351.

Among the BSE sectoral indices, the BSE Metals index was the top gainer, up by 1%. The Auto index, the Consumer Durables index and the BSE Banking index rose ~0.6% each.

The Capital Goods index slipped 0.8% and the Teck index lost 0.4%.

The BSE Mid-Cap index and the BSE Small-Cap index rose ~4% and 0.2%, respectively.

Among the 30 constituents of the Sensex, Hero Motocorp, Tata Steel, Sun Pharma, Hindalco, M&M and Coal India were among the top gainers. On the other hand, Wipro, Tata Power, SBI, Cipla and L&T ended in the negative terrain.

The Advance-Decline ratio on the BSE was in favor of the bulls. On the BSE, 1496 stocks advanced against 1381 declining stocks. While, only 94 stocks were unchanged.

"The liquidity driven rally seems to be running out of steam in the absence of policy action and due to concerns about corporate earnings. FII inflows too have tapered off lately even as the domestic funds remain ultra cautious amid deceleration in India's growth momentum.

The Indian market could remain in a sideways consolidation phase with a positive bias till the UP elections are over. The Union Budget will be another important event on the domestic calendar in the near term.

As far as global markets are concerned, investors will continue to take cues from macro data points and developments out of the euto area," says Amar Ambani, Head of Research, IIFL - India Private Clients.

The BSE Sensex, which was one of the world's worst performers last year with a drop of 25%, is up ~15% this year.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) have invested about US$4bn in local equities so far this year, data from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) showed. This is in stark contrast to 2011, when they were net sellers of ~US$500mn.