Indian markets gained for the sixth straight session on Wednesday, amid a rally in global stocks, after uncertainty over continuation of US economic policy ended as Barack Obama was re-elected as President for the second term.
The 30-share Sensex provisionally ended up 74 points at 18,892 and the 50-share Nifty ended up 31 points at 5,756.
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(Updated at 14:31hrs)
Markets have come off days high in the afternoon trades with the Sensex up 120 points at 18,937 and the Nifty added 43 points at 5,767. The ones leading the afternoon trades were financials, IT and auto scrips.
In the broader markets, the midcap and the smallcap pared some of their early gains and was up 0.7-0.8% outperforming the BSE benchmark index, up 0.5%.
Barack Obama won a second term as the President of the United States after defeating Republican challenger Mitt Romney in a closely fought battle. Overcoming what appeared to be a cliff-hanger, Obama finally managed to emerge winner after a convincing victory in the crucial state of California.
According to Sonal Varma, India economist at Nomura, “We expect some moderation in US growth next year. For India, the outcome is broadly status quo as regards the key policies. As regards bond yields, our house view is that we are bullish on bonds and expect the 10-year bond yields rally to 7.80 levels by March 2013, mainly because of domestic factors like open market operations continuing.”
Meanwhile, the rupee advanced further by 28 paise to 54.15 against the US currency on selling of dollars by banks and exporters after the greenback weakened against against major world currencies.
European stocks rallied early on Wednesday as the re-election of US President Barack Obama fuelled expectation the Federal Reserve's quantitative easing will continue. CAC, DAX and FTSE stepped up 0.2-0.6%.
Asian markets were also in the green. The Hang Seng was up 0.7% at 22,100. Taiwan Weighted, Kospi and Straits Times also moved up 0.5-0.7% each. Shanghai Composite, KLSE Composite and Nikkei were the only markets flat with a negative bias.
Among the sectoral indices, Realty up 2% was the top gainer followed by Bankex, Auto, Consumer Durables and IT gaining 0.8-1%.Meanwhile, Oil & Gas continues to trade in the negative zone.
The movers among the Sensex-30 were HDFC, SBI, BHEL, Tata Motors, ICICI Bank, Sterlite, Hero MotoCorp, Tata Steel, Hindalco, Jindal Steel and Maruti Suzuki which added between 1-2%.
The only losers were Tata Power, Bharti Airtel, Coal India and Reliance Industries down 0.3-2%
In individual stocks, Britannia Industries is trading lower by 2% at Rs 470 in otherwise firm market after reporting a lower than expected 21% year-on-year (yoy) growth in net profit at Rs 46 crore for the second quarter ended September 2012. Net sales grew 9% at Rs 1,403 crore on y-o-y basis.
Aarvee Denims and Exports has been locked in 10% upper circuit at Rs 72.60 after reporting almost five-fold surge in net profit at Rs 17.29 crore for the second quarter ended September 2012 on back of higher sales and lower raw material cost. The textiles company had a profit of Rs 3.75 crore in the year ago quarter.
The market breadth continues to remain positive. 1600 stocks advanced while 1142 stocks declined on the BSE.
