Bears take a breather; Sensex rallies 216 points led by RIL

Markets snapped 6-day streak of losses with RIL contributing the most to the rise on the benchmarks

Markets which had hit three month low after losses in the previous six straight sessions rebounded to end higher amid value buying and short covering in index heavyweights led by RIL.
 

The S&P BSE Sensex gained 216 points to end at 25,252 while Nifty50 climbed 71 points to close at 7,684. Markets slipped for six straight sessions with Sensex losing over massive 1,100 points as hopes of US Federal Reserve rate hike coupled with concern over the clearance of the GST bill in the Parliament dampened the sentiments.

"We believe that India is on a relatively better positioning.  Given the current uncertain environments where one is expecting a US rate hike and soft commodity prices, we are maintaining our near term trading range for the market to 7,500-8,200 levels" said R Sreesankar, Head – Insitutional Equities, Prabhudas Lilladher.

GLOBAL STOCKS

Asian stocks closed lower on global growth concerns amid decline in the crude oil prices. Meanwhile, investors remain unnerved ahead of the US Federal Reserve interest rate hike. China’s Shanghai Composite, Hong Kong’s hnag Seng, Japan’s Nikkei lost between 0.4%-1.4%. 

Following the tandem, European stocks are also trading lower with FTSE, DAX and CAC40 dropping between 0.1%-0.4%.

KEY STOCKS

Among the prominent gainers, oil and gas shares which lost in the recent past on the back of falling crude prices closed higher today as investors bought them at attractive valuations. RIL, ONGC and GAIL soared between 1%-3.7%. Meanwhile, media reports suggest that Reliance Jio Infocomm, a unit of Reliance Industries may acquire smaller telecom companies to gain market share and compete with incumbents which further boosted the stock. RIL jumped 3.7%.

Meanwhile, metal stocks which saw a steep downfall mirroring lower commodity prices shot up in today’s trade on fresh buying interest. Hindalco, Tata Steel and Vedanta climbed between 1%-3%.

Among individual names, Infosys surged 2% on comments from CEO Vishal Sikka at an Barclay's conference said that the strategies are working and the company is on track to industry leading growth. Further, the IT major has invested $4 million in CloudEndure, a startup that provides cloud migration and cloud-based disaster recovery software.

Telecom major, Bharti Airtel closed higher by 0.2% as the company is set to launch 4G services in Rajasthan within a few days and cover other important cities in next six months.

Realty space hogged limelight in today’s trade with shares of real estate companies ending higher between 1%-3% after the cabinet on wednesday announced some amendments and approved the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Bill, 2015. Among individual names, Prestige Estates, Phoenix Mills, Unitech, NBCC, Ashiana Housing and HDIL jumped between 2%-4.5%.

Shares of shipping companies also finished firm after the union cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday gave nod to the proposal for introducing steps to encourage shipbuilding and ship repair industry in India under the ‘Make in India’ initiative.

Among individual stocks, ABG Shipyard, Shipping Corporation of India and Great Eastern Shipping closed higher between 2%-9%.

Another notable gainer in today’s trade was Havells India closing 8% higher on reports that the company has sold Sylvania Malta and Havells Exim Hong Kong to Shanghai Feilo Acoustics for Rs 1,340 crore.

On the flip side, shares of auto stocks reeled under selling pressure with M&M, Tata Motors, Hero Motocorp and Maruti Suzuki closing lower between 0.2%-2%.

Other big losers include Lupin, SBI, BHEL, Sun Pharma and Axis Bank closed lower between 0.3%-1.5%.