Markets snap one week losing streak; Nifty ends above 8,550

Indian corporate leaders have welcomed the landslide victory of the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi

Benchmark share indices on Tuesday snapped their losing streak of seven days, amid a volatile trading session; bank and auto shares led the gains. Further, Indian corporate leaders welcomed the landslide victory of the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi and saif the change would lead to good governance.

Arvind Kejriwal emerged victorious in the high-profile New Delhi constituency, handing a crushing defeat to BJP's Nupur Sharma by a margin of 31,583 votes.

The 30-share Sensex ended 128.23 points higher than its previous close at 28,355.62 and the 50-share Nifty rose 39.20 points to 8,565.55.

Indian corporate CEOs are hoping that the new Chief Minister will abandon confrontationist approach towards the corporates and make it easier for companies to do business in the capital city.

“It is a change that people of Delhi had voted for AAP. Kejriwal is a simple individual with good governance and clean governance,” said HDFC Chairman, Deepak Parekh here today after the AAP victory

Among broader markets, BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices ended mixed. Market breadth was marginally weak with 1,400 losers and 1,330 gainers on the BSE.

Meanwhile, foreign portfolio investors continued to remain sellers in Indian equities with net sale of Rs 660.30 crore on Monday, as per provisional data.

Further, the government on Monday estimated India’s economic growth this financial year at 7.4%, against 6.9% in 2013-14, as the country changed its definition of gross domestic product (GDP) and the base year for calculating it. The estimated growth for 2014-15 is the same as China’s growth for 2014.

SECTORS & STOCKS

BSE Auto, Bankex, Consumer Durables and Metal indices surged by almost 2% each. However, BSE IT and Oil & Gas indices plunged by nearly 1%.

Banking shares ended higher by up to 4% on the bourses after the government estimated India’s economic growth this financial year to soar 7.4% under new methodology.

SBI, Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Bank of Baroda, YES Bank, OBC, Union Bank of India and PNB were up 3-4% on the NSE. IndusInd Bank, Canara Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank were up 1-2%.

ICICI Bank, the largest private sector lender in the country, has initiated the process of repatriating capital from its Canadian arm for the second time in as many years. The bank is also planning to optimise the capital invested in its United Kingdom subsidiary.

From the auto space, Tata Motors was the top Sensex gainer, up over 4%. M&M gained over 3%.    Domestic passenger car sales increased 3.14% to 1,69,300 units in January 2015 as compared with 1,64,149 units in the year-ago month.

Hindalco gained by nearly 2% after its UK-based subsidiary Novelis posted robust results for quarter ended December 2014.

Other notable gainers were Tata Steel, Sesa Sterlite, Coal India, GAIL and BHEL.

On the losing side, TCS and HDFC declined by almost 3%. Sun Pharma, RIL, NTPC, HUL and Wipro slipped between 1-2%.

The Indian IT outsourcing sector is expected to see export revenue growing 12-14% in the financial year starting in April, an industry lobby group said on Tuesday. The sector's exports in 2015/16 are forecast to rise to as much as $112 billion, according to the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom).

Reliance Industries has claimed that allegations that its Chairman Mukesh Ambani has illegal Swiss bank accounts are not true and said it operates many international accounts for its business purposes which are as per the law.

Among other shares, ABB India rallied 6% to Rs 1,338 on NSE after reporting a healthy 42% year on year (yoy) growth in net profit at Rs 84 crore for the fourth quarter ended December 31, 2014 (Q4), on back of strong operational performance.