The Sensex staged a smart recovery with a 434 points gain in today's trading session. The steady upmove seen through the day was mainly because the traders covered shorts and additional buying was seen from FIIs as they were churning their portfolio, opines Kishor Oswal of Mumbai-based CNI Research and Stock Broking. The Nifty may cross the 6,000pmark if we see a further fall in crude prices, and positive guidance from Infosys, he added.
Earlier in the day, the Sensex opened in the red and soon touched a low of 19,101. However, the BSE benchmark index soon rebounded into the green and headed northwards as the day progressed. Unabated buying mainly in auto, banking and capital goods stocks saw the index flare up to a high of 19,731 towards the end of the day. The Sensex finally ended with a gain of 434 points at 19,696 and the Nifty added 125 points at 5,911. Aditya Birla Money, in its daily market commentary, said it foresees an uptrend in the markets, and expects the Nifty to face resistance at 6,000-6,050 levels, with a support at 5,860-5,800 levels.
In the broader markets, the gains were not very prominent as compared to the Sensex. The smallcap and the midcap indices gained 1% each as comapred to the BSE benchmark index which gained over 2%. The only dent in this positive scenario, is the rebound in crude price and Kuwait halting its oil exports due to dust storm, says Shshank Mehta, Derivatives Strategist, Nirmal Bang.
As per the SEBI data for the month of April, foreign fund houses have invested Rs 7,106.5 crore till April 11.Reviewing the current scenario in the emerging markets, Goldman Sachs Asset Management chairman Jim O'Neill stated that BRIC nations are no longer emerging markets as they have become growth markets for world economy.
Affirming the India growth story further, ING Investment Management has resumed buying Indian equities for the first time in almost a year as valuations are now cheaper and inflation looks close to peaking, a strategist for ING's emerging markets fund said.
Capital Goods, Auto, Bankex, FMCG and IT which gained 2% each were the top sectoral gainers.On the other hand, Health Care and Metal remained laggards through the day. Hero Honda on the back of interim dividend news up nearly 6%, Apollo Tyres, Maruti Suzuki which gained 3% each were the movers in the auto space. Bankex index surged as Yes Bank, Federal Bank advanced 4% each followed by HDFC Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, ICICI Bank, IDBI Bank and Bank of India which added 2% each.
Among the Sensex-30 stocks, the gainers were Jaiprakash Associates (Rs 98) up 7%, L&T (Rs 1735), Wipro (Rs 473), Hindustan Unilever (Rs 281), ITC (Rs 190), TCS (Rs 1208) and NTPC (Rs 187) added 2-3% each.
Tata Power (Rs 1310) and Sterlite (Rs 173) down 0.5% and 0.4% were the only losers on the Sensex.
The market breadth was very positive. Of the total 3029 stocks traded on the BSE, 1960 stocks have advanced while 971 declined.