The bears re-asserted their supremacy in the last hour of trade to cut short the dominance of the bulls through most part of the trading session. The markets had a gap-up opening on the back of firm global bourses and receding fears surrounding the social upheaval in Egypt and seemed set to sign off the day in style, before succumbing to selling pressure at higher levels in what could have been a knee-jerk reaction to the reported arrest of former telecom minister A Raja in the telecom scam. The Sensex shed more than 200 points from the highs of the day to end at 18,090, up 68 points and the Nifty ended at 5432, up 14 points. The midcap and smallcap indices, however, ended absolutely flat at 6754 and 8362 respectively.
There were positive cues from the global market front this morning. While the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's assurance of stepping down after the expiry of his current term failed to pass muster with the protesting citizenry of Egypt, it had apparently allayed fears that the continuing turbulence in Egypt could derail the shipments through the Suez canal and thereby impact the global markets. The US markets expectedly had a good session, Asia followed suit and India, which has been waiting for the elusive rally after the tremors of the recent past, took the bull by the horn before caving into selling pressure towards the fag end of trade. It may be recollected that the Sensex had received a battering of 300 points and the Nifty had lost 88 points in the previous trading session.
Asian stocks rose on Wednesday, with the key benchmark indices in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan and Singapore rising between 0.83% and 1.81%. The Chinese stock markets are shut till February 8, while the South Korean and Taiwanese markets are also closed for the Lunar New Year holidays this week. In US market action overnight, the Dow Jones and S&P 500 closed at their highest levels since June 2008 on easing concerns over the Egyptian imbroglio and strong corporate earnings and signs of a surge in US manufacturing. The Dow gained 148 points, Standard & Poor's 500 Index rose 21 points and Nasdaq Composite Index added 51 points. And European shares rose on Wednesday, extending the previous session's near three-week high, as strong macroeconomic data and buoyant corporate earnings continued to fuel investor risk appetite.
This could well be considered as the day of the underdogs. Tata Motors, which had plunged more than 7% in the previous session on poor sales numbers, retraced half of its losses to end higher by 3.8% at Rs 1110 on the BSE. RIL, which has been out of favour lately and broke the 900 levels on Monday, bounced back smartly to add 2.8% at Rs 921. And DLF, which has been spiralling downwards in the past couple of sessions on the back of interest rate concerns, saw value buying to end higher by 2.8% at Rs 227. Bharti Airtel, which had dipped 4% this morning after reporting a poor set of numbers, saw a remarkable rearguard action to end higher by 2.5% at Rs 323. The telecom company reported a 41% decline in consolidated net profit at Rs 1,303 crore for Q3FY11 compared to Rs 2,195 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal.
On the other hand, Hero Honda skid by 5.2% at Rs 1523 to top the loser's list on the BSE after reporting a decline in net profit in the third quarter. The company posted a net profit of Rs 429 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2010, down 19.92% compared to Rs 535.77 crore in the corresponding quarter a year ago. HDFC lost 2.2% at Rs 618 after raising its lending rates by 25 basis points. Tata Steel lost 0.8% at Rs 625 as shares allotted in the follow-on public offer (FPO) were admitted for trading. The issue closed on 21 January 2011 and a total of 5.7 crore shares allotted in the FPO would have been listed in today's session. Bhel and NTPC were the other major losers, shedding 2.6% each at Rs 2138 and Rs 180 respectively.
The market breadth was marginally positive. Out of 2979 stocks traded on the BSE, there were 1421 advancing stocks as against 1382 declines.
