Markets finish flat; Sensex holds 27,800

Markets finished flat as caution prevailed on the bourses ahead of the RBI monetary policy review due tomorrow dragged by financials. Weakness in healthcare shares weighed on the indices with Sun Pharma contributing the most to the decline after posting lower than expected results.

Provisionally, the Sensex gained 13 points to end at 27,841 levels and the Nifty shed 12 points to close at .8,442 levels.
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(updated at 3.30 PM)

Markets have turned flat but continue to trade in the positive territory as caution prevailed on the bourses ahead of the RBI monetary policy review due tomorrow dragged by financials. Weakness in healthcare shares is weighing on the indices with Sun Pharma contributing the most to the decline after posting lower than expected results.

Meanwhile, investors cheer the Q4 GDP data which ensured that India became the world’s fastest growing economy, outpacing China, with a growth of 7.5% in the March quarter and the HSBC report stating that India’s manufacturing PMI increased to a four-month high of 52.6 in May from 51.3 in April, with a reading above 50 signaling expansion.

At 2.40 PM, the Sensex is trading higher by 45 points at 27,873 levels and the Nifty is quoting at 8,440 levels up 6 points.

RUPEE

The rupee is trading at 63.61 against the US dollar on persistent selling of dollars by banks and exporters in view of fresh foreign capital inflows into the equity market.

BUZZING STOCKS

On the sectoral front, barring BSE healthcare and Bankex, all other sectoral indices are trading in the positive territory with BSE Capital Goods and Realty indices leading the rally up over 1% each.

Capital goods majors, L&T and BHEL are trading higher 3% and 1% each on the achieving fresh orders. L&T has has won orders worth Rs 1,099 crore in May 2015 while BHEL Rs 369-crore order for supply and installation of a power cycle piping (PCP) package for Barh project of NTPC. NTPC is trading higher by 1.6%.

Shares of Reliance Industries have soared over 2.5% after the company overtook Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) to become the nation's most profitable company, reporting a consolidated net profit of Rs 23,566 crore in the 2014-15 fiscal. On the other hand, ONGC is trading lower by 2%.

Maruti Suzuki is up 2.5% on reporting a growth of 13% in domestic sales for the month of May 2015, outperforming most of its rivals.

Cipla is trading higher by 2% after the total income reported by the company increased from Rs 10,439 crore to Rs 11,511 crore on year-on-year basis and the domestic sales in March 2015 appreciated from Rs 900 crore in the year ago period.

Shares Sun Pharma are trading lower by 8.4% after the company reported lower than expected earnings. The company reported a 44% decline in its final quarter net profit, on the back of the Ranbaxy acquisition.

Sales of Jaguar Land Rover, owned by Tata Motors dropped by a fifth year-on-year in China for the first three months of the year. Reacting to the news, shares of Tata Motors slipped by 1.4%.

Banking shares are trading with losses ahead of the RBI policy review tomorrow.  HDFC Bank, Axis Bank and ICICI Bank are down between 0.3-1.5%.