The markets had another decent session of trade. While the day's activity lacked the flourish that one has almost begun to expect, the tally at the end of the day is all that matters. And the markets did end higher for the fifth consecutive trading session. After moving in a range of a little more than 100 points, the Sensex ended higher by 51 points at 17745 and the Nifty ended well above the 5300 mark at 5322, up 18 points. We are now up 344 points in the last five trading sessions and still counting. The midcap index ended at 7173, higher by 0.5% and the smallcap space ended at 9245, up 0.4%.
Meanwhile, the Indian Meteorological department (IMD) expects normal rainfall this year. A good monsoon would help raise farm output, boost rural incomes and lower food inflation.
Metal stocks rose as metal prices gained on London Metal exchange over the weekend. Sterlite Industries spurted 5.9% at Rs 842. The copper major's net rose 118.70% to Rs 462.69 crore in the quarter ended March 2010 as against Rs 211.56 crore during the previous quarter ended March 2009. And to top it, the company declared a bonus in the ratio of 1:1. Hindalco rose 2.3% at Rs 184 and HDFC Bank hit an all-time high at Rs 1990 on the strength of strong Q4 numbers.
But index heavyweight Reliance Industries (RIL) fell by 1.6% at Rs 1069 as its fourth quarter results declared after market hours on Friday fell short of expectations. The diversified group posted a 29.9% rise in net profit to Rs 4710 crore on 120.7% growth in net turnover to Rs 57570 crore in Q4 March 2010 over Q4 March 2009.
Maruti shrugged off its stellar quarterly performance to end 1.9% lower at Rs 1335. The country's largest carmaker reported a nearly three-fold jump in net profit at Rs 656.55 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2010. And ICICI Bank ended 1.6% lower at Rs 960.
The US stocks had risen to 19-month highs on Friday as Merck eased concerns about the impact of healthcare reform and sales of new US homes climbed the most in 47 years. And the Asian markets were a picture of green, with the Hang Seng strengthening by 342 points and Nikkei adding 251 points.
The market breadth was positive. out of 2974 stocks traded on the BSE, there were 1555 advancing stocks as against 1325 declines.
Sterlite topped the value charts on the BSE with a total turnover of Rs 108.15 crore. This was followed by Reliance Industries (Rs 90.81 crore), Tata Steel (Rs 82.89 crore), SBI (Rs 81.01 crore) and ICICI Bank (Rs 76.45 crore).
Jaiprakash Associates led the volume charts with trades of 2.96 million. It was followed by DLF (1.67 million), Sterlite (1.29 million), Tata Steel (1.25 million) and Hindalco (1.11 million), (0.95 million).
