Markets vault on banking stocks

ICICI Bank surges over 3% a day ahead of its results, while investors dumped Wipro post results despite bonus issue.

ICICI Bank surges over 3% a day ahead of its results, while investors dump Wipro despite bonus issue.

The markets opened on a sedate note but recovered soon as banking stocks took centre stage. The banking stocks have been rallying since the RBI policy announcement four days back, and today they got a booster after the Cabinet cleared capital infusion of Rs 15,000 cr in PSU banks.

Earlier in the day, Wipro announced its results - wherein the Q1 net jumped by 21%. The IT major also announced 2 bonus shares for every three held, and Rs 6 per share dividend. However, all these failed to enthuse investor interest at the counter. The stock at first rallied to a high of Rs 728, but tumbled down and eventually settled with a loss of 1.4% at Rs 693.

Meanwhile, the Asian markets were subdued today following lack of direction from the US markets. Our markets, however, traded on a firm note for most part of the day. The European markets jumped in early trades which also helped our markets end on a firm note.

The Sensex touched a high of 17,726, and finally ended with a gain of 120 points at 17,694.

The BSE Bankex outperformed the benchmark, and ended with a gain of 1.7% at 11,074. The Capital Goods index also jumped over 1% to 14,107.

The Mid-cap and Small-cap indexes were up marginally around 0.5% each at 7,132 and 9,200.

The market breadth was marginally negative - out of 3,005 stocks traded today, 1,503 declined and 1,412 advanced.

ICICI Bank was the major gainer today. The stock surged 3.4% to Rs 976. The bank is scheduled to announce its Q4 results tomorrow. PSU giant SBI moved up 1.5% to Rs 2,256, while HDFC Bank ended marginally higher at Rs 1,944.

Jaiprakash Associates and Larsen & Toubro rallied 3% each to Rs 157 and Rs 1,618, respectively. Mahindra & Mahindra gained 2.4% at Rs 521.

DLF and Tata Power advanced 1.7% each to Rs 331 and Rs 1,361, respectively. ITC, Reliance and Tata Motors also moved up over 1% each.

ACC, which, announced its results yesterday slipped nearly 2% to Rs 903. Bharti Airtel and Sun Pharma dropped over 1.5% each to Rs 298 and Rs 1,685, respectively.

Wipro and Hero Honda also declined nearly 1.5% each. Reliance Communications, Tata Steel, Maruti and Sterlite were the other major losers.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

Manappuram General Finance & Leasing topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 314.80 crore on the BSE followed by SBI (Rs 194.45 crore), Tata Steel (Rs 129.82 crore), Reliance (Rs 115.80 crore) and ICICI Bank (Rs 100 crore).

FCS Software led the volume chart with trades of around 20.27 million shares on the BSE. It was followed by Visa Steel (16.18 million), Development Credit Bank (10.63 million), India Steel (9.67 million) and Sterlite Tech (7.31 million).