Nifty gains for 3rd day, ends above 7900; Wipro surges 3 pc

Mumbai: The market rallied for the third consecutive session on Tuesday with the benchmark Nifty closing above the 7900 level supported by banks, metals, auto and capital goods stocks.

The 30-share BSE Sensex rose 145.80 points to close at 26575.65 and the 50-share NSE Nifty climbed 48.35 points to 7927.75. Even the BSE Midcap and Smallcap close higher, up 0.9 percent and 0.2 percent, respectively.

After looking at the kind of reforms announced by the government in last two days, experts expect the market to continue its upward trajectory in the days to come.

The Sunday election results, then the couple of announcements that have come about for the coal as well as the diesel deregulation and the gas price hike, I think that changes the pace completely as far as the reforms are concerned, believe Nipun Mehta, founder and chief executive officer, Blue Ocean Capital Advisors. He feels there are going to be more expectations now coming in from the government between now and the finance budget about four months away.

Meanwhile, in a move to decide the fate of coal blocks that were de-allocated by the Supreme Court recently, the government on Monday proposed an ordinance to allow e-auction of mines to private players while adding that state-run companies would be allocated mines directly.

Auctioning of coal blocks in the next 3-4 months will be a positive for the industry, said Ravi Uppal, CEO and MD of Jindal Steel & Power (JSPL). JSPL rallied more than 7 percent followed by Sesa Sterlite with 4.4 percent gains.

Tata Steel and Hindalco Industries climbed over a percent. Capital goods majors BHEL, and Larsen and Toubro rallied 4.3 percent and 1 percent, respectively. Gail India was also one of the top five gainers, up 4.4 percent.

Top private sector lender ICICI Bank surged 2.6 percent while rival Axis Bank rose 1.3 percent and State Bank of India was up 0.7 percent. Tata Motors rose 1.5 percent as its subsidiary (British luxury carmaker) Jaguar Land Rover expects its China sales to grow 20 percent this year.

Software services exporter Wipro climbed 3 percent ahead of earnings. CNBC-TV18 poll expects dollar revenue to jump 2.45 percent sequentially to USD 1783 million in September quarter. Shares of Bharti Airtel, Maruti Suzuki, NTPC and Hero Motocorp jumped 2-3 percent. However, ONGC and M&M dropped 2.5 percent.

Reliance Industries, Infosys and Sun Pharma fell 0.5-1 percent. Coal India slipped 1.6 percent after the Cabinet recommended promulgation of an ordinance that will deal with the process of coal mine allocation of deallocated blocks.

Investors of the state-run company are concerned that about the enabling clause within the ordinance that will allow commercial players in the coal mining business, once okayed. It is said this provision will serve as a threat to Coal India to ramp up its production.

Earnings

HDFC Bank closed flat post second quarter earnings met street expectations. The bank's Q2 profit rose 20 percent on higher NII and other income year-on-year and asset quality was stable. But public sector lender Punjab National Bank fell 2.6 percent on lower than expected second quarter earnings.

Profit grew 14 percent compared to estimates of 142 percent jump and asset quality deteriorated further with the gross non-performing assets rising sequentially (up 51 basis points Y-o-Y) to 5.65 percent from 5.48 percent.

South Indian Bank dropped nearly 4 percent as the private sector lender's second quarter net profit fell 40 percent year-on-year to Rs 76.3 crore dented by sharp jump in provisions. JSW Steel gained nearly 3 percent on beating street expectations on all parameters in second quarter earnings.

The steel maker turned profitable, reporting consolidated net at Rs 748.7 crore as against loss of Rs 115.5 crore in the year-ago period. In the midcap space, PTC India Financial, Kalyani Steel, TVS Motor, PFC, Hexaware, SAIL, Apollo Tyres, BGR Energy, REC and Arvind surged 3-7 percent.

However, Finacial Technologies tanked 20 percent after the government issued draft order for merger of NSEL with company, saying the entire business of NSEL will be transferred to Financial Technologies. Finance Technologies was not in favour of NSEL's merger with company.

Helios and Matheson, Suzlon, Exide Industries, Jindal Saw, Zee Media and HCL Info were down 3-20 percent. About 1504 shares advanced while 1327 shares declined on the Bombay Stock Exchange.