If the recent lows hold, Nifty may rally at least to that level

Brushing aside early hiccups and the weakening dollar, the market settled with gains of around 1.75% on all-round buying in the second half of trade.

The market witnessed a minor gap up opening following a sharp Rs6.28 per litre (excluding taxes) hike in petrol prices, which was effected by government-owned oil marketing companies on Wednesday. Value picking after two successive days of losses also supported the initial upmove. The Nifty opened 27 points up at 4,863 and the Sensex added 86 points to its previous tally to resume trade at 16,034.

The indices were flat in early trade as the rupee continued its fall against the dollar and negative global sentiments. The market touched its intraday low at around 10.40 am amid volatile trade. At the lows, the Nifty fell to 4,830 and the Sensex went back to 15,935.

However, buying activity gathered momentum after the rupee staged a recovery from the day’s low of 56.38 to 56.09 lifting the market higher. A small bout of selling saw the indices pare some of the gains in noon trade. In Europe, the French benchmark CAC 40 and Britain’s FTSE 100 were in the positive while the German DAX was in the red in early trade.

Across-the-board buying led by banking and oil & gas stocks resulted in all sectoral indices gaining strength.  The benchmarks hit their intraday highs towards the end of the trading session with the Nifty rising to 4,932 and the Sensex scaling 16,252.

The market closed a tad below that level. The Nifty settled 86 points higher (1.77% up) at 4,921 and the Sensex ended trade at 16,222, up 274 points (1.72% up).

The advance decline ratio on the NSE was a positive 875:508.

Among the broader markets, the BSE Mid-cap index gained 0.76% and the BSE Small-cap index climbed 0.75%.

Today’s rally resulted in all sectoral indices settling in the green. The top gainers were BSE Bankex (up 2.33%); BSE Oil & Gas (up 1.98%); BSE TECk (up 1.49%); BSE Metal (up 1.36%) and BSE PSU (up 1.24%).

The top Sensex stocks were ONGC (up 5.74%); Bharti Airtel (up 5.62%); HDFC (up 4.38%); Jindal Steel (up 3.46%) and HDFC Bank (up 3.06%). The losers were led by Maruti Suzuki (down 0.53%); TCS (down 0.34%); BHEL (down 0.26%); Sun Pharma (down 0.25%) and Hindustan Unilever (down 0.22%).

The Nifty toppers were ONGC (up 6.08%); Bharti Airtel (up 5.32%); Bank of Baroda (up 5.21%); Ranbaxy (up 5.07%) and HDFC (up 4.41%). Jaiprakash Associates (down 1.08%); Cairn India (down 0.95%); Maruti Suzuki (down 0.70%); HUL (down 0.47%) and GAIL India (down 0.42%) settled at the bottom of the index.

Markets in Asia settled mixed on a slowdown in Chinese factory orders and fresh concerns about Greece exiting the Eurozone. The Chinese HSBC Flash Purchasing Managers Index fell to 48.7 in May from 49.3 the month before, signalling to persistent weakness even as the government is taking steps to ramp up growth.

The Jakarta Composite added 0.08%; the KLSE Composite rose 0.55%; the Nikkei 225 gained 0.08% and the KOSPI Composite climbed 0.32%. On the other hand, the Shanghai Composite fell by 0.53%; the Hang Seng declined 0.64%; the Straits Times shed 0.03% and the Taiwan Weighted lost 0.32%.

At the time of writing, the key European indices were trading with gains in the range of 0.32% to 1.04% and the US stock futures were in the positive.

Back home, foreign institutional investors were net sellers of shares totalling Rs361.07 crore while domestic institutional investors were net buyers of equities aggregating Rs168.49 crore.

TVS Motor Company has informed BSE that the company’s board of directors at its meeting held today, has declared a second interim dividend of Rs0.70 per share (70%) for the year ended 31 March 2012. The stock rose 1.06% to close at Rs33.35 on the NSE.

Bangalore-based Vijaya Bank has inked a pact with Western Union, a global payment services company, to avail international money transfers to its customers. It has started offering Western Union Money Transfer services at 1,300 branches across the country. The stock surged 2.68% to settle at Rs53.60 on the NSE.

Micro Technologies (India) has reported over three-fold jump in its consolidated net profit to Rs24.54 crore for the fourth quarter ended 31 March 2012 compared to Rs7.13 crore in the same period of previous fiscal. The consolidated net sales of the company rose to Rs322.26 crore for the reporting quarter against Rs198.36 crore in the same period of previous fiscal, up by 62.46%. Micro Tech lost 0.72% to close at Rs145.70 on the NSE.