Markets flip-flop, IT and FMCG surge

Markets have been volatile for most part of the day as State Bank of India continued to put downward pressure and frontline stocks like HDFC Bank, Infosys and Hindustan Unilever helped Sensex recover in the last leg of trade. The Sensex opened in the green at 20,851 and touched an high of 20,984, up 132 points, but profit booking financials dragged the index to the day's low of 20,763, down 89 points. The benchmark has surged 76 points to 20,932 and the Nifty has risen 23 points to 6297. 

Analysts say that the current rally has not lost steam and there is further upside left."Historically, the markets have peaked out at around 26x to 28x forward P/E (Price to Earnings) ratio. Currently, the Sensex is trading at 21x forward earnings. Hence, we have not run ahead of valuations," TS Harihar, Senior VP, ICICI Securities said.

On the global front, the Asian markets have closed on a mixed note. The key indices Hang Seng ended down 1% at 24,710 while the Nikkei shut shop at 9,694, losing 0.3%. However, Jakarta Composite gained 0.7% to close at 3,726 while Taiwan Weighted and Seoul Composite ended flat.

The European bourses have improved from their opening in the red. FTSE has risen 0.4%, CAC and DAX have surged 0.2% each.

On the BSE sectoral chart, FMCG has climed up 2.4% along with BSE IT which is leading the sectoral pack, up 1.1%.

Nestle, up 10.3%, Colgate Palmolive, up 9.9% and Hindustan uniliver, up 3.9% are top gainers from the FMCG sector. From the IT pack, TCS surged 2.1%, Financial Technologies rose 1.7% and Infosys was up 1%.
 
In the banking space, SBI continues to lose on account of its dismissal quarterly results and is trading down 4.1% followed by Bank of Baroda, down 2.1% and IDBI Bank, down 0.9%.

Among the Sensex-30 stocks the major gainers are Hindustan Unilever followed by HDFC Bank, TCS and Bharti Airtel gaining 2% each.

The losers on the benchmark index apart from the banking space are Maruti Suzuki, Reliance Infrastructure and ONGC.

The market breadth continues to be positive. Of the total 3041 stocks traded on the BSE, 1698 stocks have advanced while 1265 have declined.