Uptrend continues, banks and realty stocks lead

The markets continue to witness buying in the noon deals. The Sensex has jumped 210 points to 17,073 levels and the Nifty has advanced 66 points to 5,153 levels, led by buying interest visible in banking, realty and oil & gas stocks.

Bajaj Auto is the top gainer among the Sensex stocks, up nearly 4% at Rs 1,602. ICICI Bank is also trading higher by 3.2% at Rs 879 ahead of its third quarter results which are expected later in the day today. SBI has jumped nearly 3% to Rs 2,049 after the government agreed to infuse Rs 7,900 crore into the bank through a preferential issue. Index heavyweight Reliance Industries, DLF, Jindal Steel, Hero MotoCorp, TCS, Hindalco, ITC, HDFC Bank, Infosys and Tata Motors are also among the gainers.

However, Maruti Suzuki, NTPC, Coal India, Larsen & Toubro and HUL are among the notable losers.

Banking, realty, oil & gas and IT stocks are among the top sectoral gainers. BSE banking index- Bankex has jumped 2.3% or 251 points to 11,220 levels. Realty index is also up 2% at 1,681. Oil & Gas, IT, Auto, Metal, Consumer Durables, FMCG, Power and PSU indices have also added 0.4-1.4% each.

At the same time, Capital Goods are witnessing some amount of selling pressure. The BSE Capital Goods index is the only loser, down 0.2% at 9,760.

Union Bank, Indusind Bank, IDBI Bank, Yes Bank, Canara Bank, Axis Bank, PNB, Kotak Mahindra Bank and bank of Baroda from the banking space are trading higher by 1.4-4.6% each. From the realty sector, Anant Raj Industries, Unitech, HDIL, Phoenix Mills, Oberoi Realty, Godrej Properties and Sobha Developers are among the top gainers.

Among the individual stocks, Havells India is trading higher by 4% at Rs 463, extending its previous day’s 3.5% gain after reporting a 41% year-on-year (y-o-y) jump in consolidated net profit at Rs 89 crore for the third quarter ended December 2011. The company had posted a net profit of Rs 63 crore in the corresponding quarter last fiscal.

Ingersoll-Rand has soared 10% to Rs 468 after reporting a healthy 81% year-on-year (y-o-y) growth in net profit at Rs 27.79 crore for the quarter ended December 2011, compared with Rs 15.35 crore in the corresponding quarter of previous fiscal.

The broader markets are trading higher by 1% each. The BSE mid-cap index is up 1.2% at 5,827 and the small-cap index is up 1% at 6,429 levels.

The overall breadth is positive as 1,492 stocks are advancing while 1,040 are declining.