Sensex ends 251 points higher led by pharma shares

 

Benchmark share indices gained momentum in the latter half of the trading session to end higher amid renewed buying interest in defensives led by pharma shares. Further, the street is expecting the central bank to maintain status quo on key rates at its policy meet tomorrow.

The 30-share Sensex provisionally ended up 251 points at 28,512 and the 50-share Nifty gained 67 points at 8,654.
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Updated at 2:55PM
Markets have gained momentum in the last one hour of the trading session led by a strong rally in the healthcare shares with Sun Pharma contributing the most to the gains following the completion of the merger of Ranbaxy Laboratories with itself.

Also, strength in the Index heavyweights including Tata Motors, ITC and ONGC have lifted the benchmark indices higher.

 

At 2.55 PM, the 30-share Sensex has climbed 220 points at 28,480 and the 50-share Nifty is up 65 points at 8,652.

Sun Pharma, Dr Reddy’s Lab, M&M, ONGC and Cipla are the top 5 gainers on the Sensex and are trading higher between 2.5-6.5%.

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                                                                              (updated at 2.30 PM)

Markets edged higher in late noon trades amid renewed buying interest in FMCG majors on expectations that the government would table  the GST Constitutional Amendment Bill in the Lok Sabha very soon.

At 2:30PM, the 30-share Sensex was up 141 points at 28,401 and the 50-share Nifty was up 39 points at 8,625.

Further, foreign institutional investors were net buyers in equities to the tune of Rs 210 crore on Wednesday. Markets were closed on Thursday on account of Mahavir Jayanti and the following day on account of Good Friday.

The Indian rupee was trading higher 62.17 to the US dollar compared to Tuesday's close of 62.50. The forex

Meanwhile, a private survey showed that India's services PMI eased a bit during March because of higher input costs even as new business orders showed improvement.

The HSBC India Services Business Activity Index for March came in slightly lower at 53.0 compared with 53.9 in the previous month.

SECTORS & STOCKS

All sectoral indices on the BSE except IT were in the green led by BSE Healthcare index up 3.3% followed by FMCG, Consumer Durables, Auto, Oil and Gas among others. The IT index was down 0.4%.

Consumer Durables and FMCG shares firmed up on expectations that the government will move the GST Constitutional Amendment Bill in the Lok Sabha soon.  From the consumer durables pack, PC Jeweller, TTK Prestige, Titan, Bajaj Electricals, Whirlpool are trading higher between 0.5-4%. FMCG major ITC and Hindustan Unilever were up over 2% each.

Sun Pharma was the top gainer up over 6% following the completion of the merger of Ranbaxy Laboratories with itself. Further, trading was suspended in Ranbaxy Labs following the merger process.

Dr Reddy's Labs was up 1.5% after local brokerage Karvy raised the price target by 5.8% to Rs 3,915 rupees with a 'buy' rating. Cipla was up 3.2%.

NTPC is up 1.2% amid reports that the country's largest power producer will more than double its current installed capacity to 90,000 MW in the next ten years.

India Infra Fund II will acquire 23.5 per cent stake in ONGC Tripura Power Company for a total consideration of Rs 426 crore. The stock is up over 2%.

Mahindra and Mahindra’s (M&M) South Korean subsidiary SsangYong Motor has sold a total of 12,870 units in March 2015 - 7,719 units in domestic sales and 5,151 in exports. The stock is up nearly 3%.

Banking stocks are trading mixed after recent polls forecasted that the central bank would maintain status quo on interest rates due to unseasonal rainfall which has destroyed crops and is likely to put pressure on the inflation. HDFC, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank are trading down 0.2-1% each.

However, SBI was trading up 0.6% after the state-owned bank raised capital by allotting 10.04 crore shares on preferential basis to Government of India at Rs 295.59 per equity share.

Bajaj Auto’s bike sales were down by 22 per cent in March 2015 to stand at around 2.1 lakh units versus 2.7 lakh units in the same month of 2014.  The stock is trading 0.3% lower.

IT major were trading lower amid weak US economic data after lower-than-expected jobs were added at 126,000 in March. The job additions were the smallest increase since December 2013. Infosys, TCS and Wipro were down 0.1-2% each.

Coal India is down 0.7% after it missed the production target for the financial year 2014-15 by 3 per cent recording an output of 494.23 million tonnes. Coal India's output target was 507 million tonnes.

In the broader market, BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices are trading high up 0.8-1% each.

The market breadth is strong on the BSE with 1,633 gainers versus 944 losers.