Sensex advances over 150 points, Nifty comfortably above 9,400

Lupin fell 5% on poor Q4 and after reports that it received US FDA observations for Indore plant

Benchmark indices continued advancing tracking Wall Street's positive closing as US Fed agreed to hold off raising interest rates until it was clear that the recent US economic slowdown was temporary, though most said a hike was coming soon. Asian markets were also trading in green in morning deals.
 
Back home, there was a small pullback considering Thursday being the expiry day for May series while the Street also watched out for the host of earnings to be declared later today. As much as 182 companies are scheduled to report their results including Ashok Leyland, Bosch, Britannia, Cipla, NMDC, Thomas Cook and Vadilal Industries among others.
 
At 11:25 am, the S&P BSE Sensex was trading at 30,475, up 173 points, while the broader Nifty50 was ruling at 9,421, up 60 points.
 
The broader market outperformed benchmark indices with S&P BSE Midcap and the S&P BSE Smallcap indices up 0.3% and 1% respectively.

"Seeing current levels, sideways to negative trend is likely to stay in Nifty. On the upside, 9,450 and thereafter 9,500 is a crucial resistance whereas, 9,350 is an immediate support and only if it breaks those levels then we can see it sliding to 9,300 levels. Today being an expiry we will see lot of stock specific activity on both the sides and Nifty is likely to end the expiry in the range of 9,360-9,410 levels," said Anand Rathi Technicals in a note.

Buzzing Stocks

Adani Ports, Bajaj Auti, Infosys and M&M were the top gainers on BSE Sensex while Lupin, Bharti Airtel and Dr Reddy's lost the most on the index. 

Lupin fell over 5% on poor Q4 and after media reports that it received six US FDA Form 483 observations for its Indore plant. It's consolidated net profit for the Mach quarter fell 49% from a year ago to Rs 380.21crore, missing analysts’ estimates by a wide margin.

Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular fell 1.5% and 3.2% respectively after regulator rejected the telecom department's call to reconsider its recommendation of fines worth Rs 3,050 crore on Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular or not providing adequate points of interconnect (PoIs) to Reliance Jio 

Rollover Report
 

The rollover percentage for the Nifty futures came in at 55.51% on Wednesday compared to 50.9% on the same day of the previous expiry, while the market-wide rollover stood at 57.44% as compared to 57.1% on the same day of the previous expiry.

The Nifty May rollover is higher than its three-month average of 54.09% and its six-month average of 52.92%.

Meanwhile, the Nifty Bank rollovers were at 40.67% compared to 56.77% on the same day of the previous expiry, which are lower than its three-month average of 50.89% and its six-month average of 45.78%. 

 
Minutes of Fed meet
 
Federal Reserve signalled a cautious approach to future rate hikes and the reduction of its $4.5 trillion of bond holdings.
 
Nearly all policymakers at the May 2-3 meeting also said they favoured beginning the wind-down of the U.S. central bank's massive holdings of Treasury debt and mortgage-backed securities this year.
 
While investors continue to see a rate increase as highly likely next month, the minutes showed that the Fed's rate-setting committee "generally" believed it hinged on the economy rebounding from its sharp slowdown in the first quarter.
 
Global Markets
 
Asian shares eked out modest gains on Thursday while the dollar and US bond yields slipped after the US Federal Reserve signalled a cautious approach to future rate hikes and the reduction of its $4.5 trillion of bond holdings.
 
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan advanced 0.3%, with South Korea leading with a 0.4% rise. Japan's Nikkei dipped 0.1% though MSCI Japan rose 0.4% in dollar terms.
 
Other Asian peers Hang Seng and Shanghai were up 0.66% and 0.13%, respectively, in morning trade.
 
In the overnight trade, Wall Street remained mainly flat. Dow Jones added 0.36% and S&P 500 gained 0.25% while the Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.4%.
 
(With inputs from Reuters)