Market near day highs led by IT shares

TCS up over 12% at Rs 1,186

Benchmark share indices firmed up and are trading near their day highs led by software technology shares after better-than-expected fourth quarter earnings from Tata Consultancy Services.

The Sensex was up 87 points at 17,184 and the Nifty was up 16 points at 5,217. The Sensex had touched an intra-high of 17,232 and the Nifty touched an intra-day high of 5,232 so far.

Asian markets were trading mixed with the Shanghai Composite trading flat, Nikkei down 0.8% while the Hang Seng was marginally up and the Straits Times gained 0.4%.

Among the sectoral indices on the Bombay Stock Exchange, the IT index was the top gainer up over 4% followed by Power index up 0.7%.

Among Sensex shares TCS was up over 12% at Rs 1,186 after the software major reported better-than-expected a 3.28% quarter-on-quarter (q-o-q) rise in net profit at Rs 2,895 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2012. Analysts expected the company to report a net profit of Rs 2,861 crore in the recently concluded quarter. TCS had reported a net profit of Rs 2,803 crore in the previous quarter.

Further, Infosys reversed its early losses to trade marginally higher by 0.6% and Wipro surged 2.9% to Rs 436.

Other notable Sensex gainers include, Tata Power, ICICI Bank, Hindalco, Hero MotoCorp and Hindustan Unilever, Coal India and NTPC.

Meanwhile, telecom service providers are facing selling pressure on concerns that the steep increase in spectrum reserve price proposed by the telecom regulator would result in huge capital expenditure. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has proposed a high reserve price for telecom spectrum to be auctioned, at nearly Rs 3,622 crore per MHz in the 1,800-MHz band for GSM services. Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular were down 3% each.

Among other shares, HCL Technologies was up 4.4% at Rs 517 on signing product development deal with US-based GridPoint to develop software for smart energy solutions.

Safari Industries was frozen in upper circuit of 20% at Rs 239, trading at its lifetime high on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). The stock has rallied 38% in past three trading days from Rs 170 on April 19, after the company changed the composition of the board of directors consequent upon the change in control over the company.

BSE market breadth was marginally negative with 1,206 declines and 1,151 gainers.