Sensex soars as Tuesday's slump seen overdone

Markets extended gains in the late-morning session this Wednesday on back of value-buying witnessed in automobile and banking shares after benchmark indices witnessed their second biggest fall in absolute terms yesterday since October 2011.

At 11:30AM, the 30-share Sensex surged 359 points at 18,592 and the 50-share Nifty gained 111 points at 5,451 levels.

Investors considered Tuesday’s slump highly overdone after Standard & Poor’s said there was a more than one-in-three chance of a ratings downgrade for India and as fears of a war in West Asia roiled global markets.

Meanwhile hopes of fresh steps to protect rupee from the central bank with Raghuram Rajan taking over the reins of RBI as the new governor today also boosted sentiments. He will address the media at around 3pm today.

The broader markets were positive with mid-caps and small-caps gaining 1 per cent on the BSE.

The market breadth was positive. Out of 1,881 stocks traded, 1,154 stocks advanced while 601 stocks declined on the BSE.


RUPEE

The rupee recovered a tad after touching 68.62 in the morning trades today. At 11:20AM, the partially convertible rupee was trading at 66.92 per dollar compared to yesterday’s close of 67.73 against the dollar on the Interbank Foreign Exchange.

The rupee breached the Rs 68 per dollar mark in early trade. This has raised concerns that it may touch a new all-time low soon. The rupee had touched an all-time low of Rs 68.85 last week.

GLOBAL MARKETS

Asian stocks fell, snapping the longest rally in three weeks, and emerging-market currencies weakened on concern the U.S. is moving closer to striking Syria. Australia’s dollar gained after the nation’s economic growth topped estimates, while crop prices declined.

Japan’s Nikkei rose 0.4% to 14,040, Singapore’s Straits Times fell 0.7% at 3,032, China’s Shanghai Composite index added 0.4% at 2,132 while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 0.05% to 22,383 today.


STOCK MOVERS

Domestically, the key sectoral indices gainers included auto, metal, bankex, IT, consumer durables and healthcare while realty and FMCG sectors lead the drop on the BSE.

The gainers included counters such as Tata Motors rising 5%, BHEL gained 4%, Hindalco Industries added 3.9%, Reliance Industries surged 3% on the BSE.

The laggards were ITC falling 1.5% while Maruti Suzuki declined 1.4%  on the BSE.

The key notable stock mover were United Spirits that has rallied 5% to Rs 2,389, extending its past four day’s rally, after Morgan Stanley acquired additional stake in the company through open market purchase.

SKS Microfinance has dipped over 5% to Rs 125 on BSE after founder Vikram Akula and private equity firm Sequoia Capital sold over 2.4 million shares of the company for about Rs 32 crore through open market.