Sensex rises after three-day losing streak

Short-covering on select stocks due to the futures and options expiry and impressive first-quarter results by the State Bank of India pulled up stock market indices on Thursday.

The Bombay Stock Exchange Sensitive Index, or Sensex, rose 214.50 points, or 1.41 per cent, to 15,387.96. The S&P CNX Nifty gained 1.28 per cent, or 57.95 points, to 4,571.45.

Siddharth Bhamre, head (investment advisory and derivatives), Angel Broking, said, “Rollover positions were decent on Thursday. Since TCS declared good results, there has been buying interest in IT stocks.”

The rollover in August futures was at 22.70 million shares, marginally higher that that July figure of 21.19 million shares.

The market breadth was fairly positive. Out of 4,053 stocks traded, 2,199 advanced, 1,726 declined and 128 were unchanged.

Information technology stocks led the rally. Market experts said the ITsector looked attractive after the rupee slipped from 48.52 to 48.36 since the last week. It fell to 48.17, but has recovered in the last two days.

The IT index was up 2.8 per cent, followed by FMCG and Bankex that rose 2.70 per cent and 2.20 per cent, respectively. Metal, power and oil & gas were down 0.02 per cent, 0.03 per cent and 0.18 per cent, respectively.

Among Sensex stocks, TCS rose the highest at 6.04 per cent. Hindustan Unilever climbed 5.15 per cent; SBI, HDFC and Wipro were up over 4 per cent; Sun Pharma fell 3.62 per cent; and BHEL and Reliance Industries were down by over 1 per cent each.

FMCG stocks HUL and ITC rose 5.15 per cent and 2.34 per cent, respectively.Banking stocks rose after SBI, the country’s largest lender, announced 42 per cent rise in net profit. SBI, ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank gained 4.01 per cent, 3.14 per cent and 2.95 per cent, respectively.

Among other Asian markets, Shanghai Composite rose 1.69 per cent whereas Hang Seng and Nikkei rose by less than 1 per cent.

US markets closed flat yesterday. The Dow Jones and the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.29 and 0.39 percent, respectively.