The market settled in the positive on all-round gains in the second half of trade. The Nifty has to maintain itself above 5,675 to sustain the uptrend. The National Stock Exchange (NSE) reported a volume of 58.90 crore shares and advance-decline ratio of 1153:382.
The market witnessed a lacklustre opening on concerns about the pace of economic growth following not-so-impressive indicators that were released yesterday. Unimpressive domestic auto sales figures for March 2013 also weighed on the sentiments. On the global front, markets in Asia, excluding Japan, were mostly higher in morning trade on hopes that growth will pick up. US markets settled lower on weak manufacturing data for March.
The Nifty opened two points down at 5,702 and the Sensex resumed trade at 18,864, down one point from its previous close. Trade was range-bound for a major part of the morning session in the absence of any triggers.
Meanwhile, the benchmarks fell to their lows at around 10.00am. At this point, the Nifty fell to 5,687 and the Sensex retracted to 18,827.
Buying in metal, capital goods and oil & gas stocks helped the benchmarks emerge into the positive in noon trade. A positive opening of the key European markets saw the domestic indices move further northwards in the second half of the trading session. All sectoral indices on the BSE were trading in the positive on all-round buying support.
The market hit its intraday high in the last hour of trade with the Nifty touching 5,755 and the Sensex climbing to 19,061. The market settled a tad off the highs, making it the fourth positive close in a row.
The Nifty settled 44 points (0.77%) higher at 5,748 and the Sensex gained 176 point (0.93%) to finish the session at 19,041.
Among the broader indices, the BSE Mid-cap index surged 1.43% and the BSE Small-cap index jumped 2.28%.
All sectoral indices closed in the positive. The top gainers were BSE Metal (up 2.07%); BSE Oil & Gas (up 1.99%); BSE Capital Goods (up 1.88%); BSE Healthcare (up 1.82%) and BSE PSU (up 1.73%).
Twenty-three of the 30 stocks on the Sensex closed in the positive. The major gainers were Sun Pharmaceutical Industries (up 4.61%); Wipro (up 4.28%); Sterlite Industries (up 3.79%); ONGC (up 2.76%) and Jindal Steel & Power (up 2.53%). The chief losers were Bajaj Auto (down 1.53%); HDFC (down 0.74%); Tata Power (down 0.47%); Bharti Airtel and ICICI Bank (down 0.41% each).
The top two A Group gainers on the BSE were—Reliance Communications (up 10.86%) and Eicher Motors (up 7.82%).
The top two A Group losers on the BSE were—Satyam Computer Services (down 5.75%) and Tech Mahindra (down 3.43%).
The top two B Group gainers on the BSE were—Bihar Sponge Iron (up 20%) and Reliance Industrial Infrastructure (up 20%).
The top two B Group losers on the BSE were—Shimoga Technologies (down 20%) and GI Engineering Solutions (down 14%).
Of the 50 stocks on the Nifty, 36 ended in the green. The key gainers were Sun Pharma (up 4.97%); Reliance Infrastructure (up 4.77%); Sesa Goa (up 4.13%); IDFC (up 3.51%) and Cairn India (up 3.11%). The major losers were Bajaj Auto (down 1.36%); Asian Paints (down 1.31%); HDFC (down 1.11%); Axis Bank (down 0.98%) and Tata Power (down 0.73%).
Markets in Asia closed mostly higher on hopes of a revival of the global economy. On the other hand, the Nikkei declined over 1% as the yen strengthened to a new one-month high against the dollar. The Shanghai Composite closed lower on news that curbs on drug prices might reduce margins of pharmaceutical distributors.
The Hang Seng rose 0.31%; the Jakarta Composite gained 0.40%; the KLSE Composite surged 1.04%; the Straits Times climbed 0.30% and the Taiwan Weighted rose 0.18%. Among the losers, the Shanghai Composite fell 0.30%; the Nikkei 225 dropped 1.08% and the Seoul Composite declined 0.49%.
At the time of writing, the CAC 40 of France was 1.11% higher; the DAX of Germany rose 1.19% and UK’s FTSE 100 was trading 1.02% higher. At the same time, the US stock futures were in the positive, indicating a firm opening for US stock later in the day.
Back home, foreign institutional investors were net buyers of shares totalling Rs313.07 crore on Monday. On the other hand, domestic institutional investors were net sellers of stocks aggregating Rs269.16 crore.
Soma Textiles & Industries has signed a business transfer agreement with GTN Engineering (India) for sale of the company’s unit at Baramati in Maharashtra on slump sale basis at a total lump sump sale consideration of Rs29.80 crore. Soma Textiles fell 7.59% to close at Rs3.65 on the NSE.
A section of workmen affiliated to Goa Trade & Commercial Worker's Union (affiliated to AITUC) of GKB Ophthalmics has resorted to an indefinite strike with effect from 2 April 2013, thereby bringing down the production to a 25% level. However the stock rose 8.07% to close at Rs 20.75 on the NSE.
