Techs drive up gains

STOCK REPORT

Across the board buying led to over 1 per cent gains in key indices on Tuesday. A slight easing of global crude oil prices and sustained foreign fund buying kept the mood buoyant, dealers said.

Technology companies gained the most on the back of a weakening rupee, as a significant part of their revenues comes from the US.

Investment bank JP Morgan, in its economic strategy note released on Friday, said it sees a weaker rupee here on because India's current account deficit will continue to worsen while capital inflows are unlikely to maintain their recent blistering pace.

This view was reflected in the rupee's decline to an eight-and-a-half-month low of Rs 44.12 per $1 on Tuesday.

The strength in the technology majors was evident in the over 2 per cent rise in the CNX IT index.

The Bombay Stock Exchange's Sensex closed at 7745.00, up 110.57 points or 1.4 per cent over Monday. The index saw an intra-day high of 7758.36 and a low of 7679.44.

The National Stock Exchange's Nifty closed at 2367.75, up 30.10 points or 1.3 per cent, after touching an intra-day high and low of 2373.80 and 2337.75, respectively.

The total traded turnover was over Rs 9,000 crore compared with Rs 7,900 crore on Monday.

"Tuesday's rise was much contrary to expectations. However, we suppose there was a lot of fund buying on Tuesday, which gave a boost to the indices," said Suman Chaudhuri, institutional dealer at Mafatlal Securities.

Domestic funds have bought heavily into Indian equities this month compared with foreign funds, contrary to the trend in July.

So far in August till Friday, domestic funds have net bought over Rs 1,880 crore worth of Indian shares, while foreign funds net bought over $867 million.

In key corporate events, Bajaj Hindusthan on Tuesday said it would buy 55 per cent stake in Pratappur Sugar and Industries. The stock rose over 6 per cent to Rs 200.05 on this news.

Hindustan Construction rose over 3 per cent to Rs 915.10 after the company said it had won a Rs 173 crore order for Srinagar tunnel project.

Zee Telefilms, HCL Technologies and Satyam Computer Services and Shipping Corp of India were the biggest Nifty gainers.

Reliance Energy, Sun Pharmaceutical, Bharti Tele-Ventures and Indian Petrochemicals were among Nifty laggards.

Mahindra and Mahindra was down 1 per cent at Rs 712.65 as the stock went ex-bonus on Tuesday.

Among second line indices, the CNX Midcap index was up 1 per cent at 3630.15.