Mumbai: The BSE Sensex shed some gains in late trade amid volatility, before closing the session with 133 points gains on Thursday. The fall in technology stocks ahead of Infosys' quarterly earnings and shedding of gains by European markets dampened somewhat sentiment towards the close. However, the rally in banks, metals, FMCG and auto stocks, and Reliance Industries helped the market close higher.
The BSE benchmark rose 0.77 per cent, to close at 17,332.62, helped by 23 components. The NSE benchmark climbed 50 points or 0.96 per cent to 5,276.85.
Banks not only largecap but also midcap and smallcap gained quite nicely on Thursday on hopes that the RBI, in its monetary policy that schedule to be announced on April 17, may cut repo rates. That seems possible, say experts after looking at industrial output data, which majorly was a non event for the market today. They believe the 25 basis points cut is possible
Sudhakar Shanbhag, Chief Investment Officer, Kotak Mahindra Old Mutual Life Insurance said, "From growth inflation dynamic perspective it is increasingly getting clear that focus has to shift to growth and hence the market expectation of rate cut from the RBI has increased post this data release and bond yields and equity markets are reflecting the expectation. Global dynamics especially Oil prices are critical and RBI would also get to see the inflation release on April 16, 2012 before it takes a stand on rate cuts.”
He said the release of February IIP at 4.1 per cent was far below the market consensus of about 6.7 per cent. Meanwhile, Aditya Birla Money said the downward revision of January IIP from 6.8 per cent to 1.1 per cent came as a major surprise. "The revision was mainly due to correction in the production data of sugar (part of consumer non-durable, which grew 42 per cent for Jan 2012) which was originally reported as 134.08 lakh tonnes and subsequently rectified to 58.09 lakh tones," he reasoned.
Country's largest lender State Bank of India shot up 3 per cent while rival ICICI Bank gained 1.5 per cent and Axis Bank jumped 3.4 per cent. HDFC Bank moved up 0.7 per cent.
Infosys, India's No. 2 software services provider tanked 1.9 per cent ahead of Q4 earnings tomorrow. CNBC-TV18 poll of analysts indicated that the net profit of the company is expected to fall 3.4 per cent QoQ while brokerage houses expect a fall in the range of 2-4 per cent.
Comments
0 comment