Realty shares advance

After trimming gains in afternoon trade, key benchmark indices hovered in narrow range in mid-afternoon trade. At 14:23 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was up 166.10 points or 0.52% at 31,877.09. The Nifty 50 index was up 48.55 points or 0.49% at 9,875.70.

The Sensex rose 208.30 points, or 0.66% at the day's high of 31,919.29 in afternoon trade, its highest level since 17 July 2017. The index rose 82.73 points, or 0.26% at the day's low of 31,793.72 in early trade. The Nifty rose 62.20 points, or 0.63% at the day's high of 9,889.35 in afternoon trade, its highest level since 17 July 2017. The index rose 24.50 points, or 0.25% at the day's low of 9,851.65 in early trade.

Among secondary barometers, the BSE Mid-Cap index was up 0.73%. The BSE Small-Cap index was up 0.88%. Both these indices outperformed the Sensex.

The broad market depicted strength. There were almost two gainers against every loser on BSE. 1,671 shares rose and 876 shares fell. A total of 132 shares were unchanged.

Realty shares rose. Anant Raj (up 3.51%), Indiabulls Real Estate (up 2.91%), Peninsula Land (up 2.08%), Housing Development and Infrastructure (HDIL) (up 2%), Sobha (up 1.91%), Oberoi Realty (up 1.84%), Phoenix Mills (up 1.53%), Prestige Estates Projects (up 1.46%), DLF (up 1.02%), Sunteck Realty (up 0.92%), D B Realty (up 0.91%), Godrej Properties (up 0.87%), Mahindra Lifespace Developers (up 0.84%) and Parsvnath Developers (up 0.62%), edged higher. Unitech (down 0.24%) and Omaxe (down 0.96%), edged lower.

FMCG shares were mixed. Bajaj Corp (up 2.16%), Britannia Industries (up 1.90%), Procter & Gamble Hygiene & Health Care (up 1.36%), Dabur India (up 1.13%), Nestle India (up 0.85%), Marico (up 0.61%), Tata Global Beverages (up 0.60%) and Godrej Consumer Products (up 0.02%), edged higher. GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare (down 0.16%), Colgate Palmolive (India) (down 0.22%) and Jyothy Laboratories (down 0.56%), edged lower.

Hindustan Unilever was down 1.14% to Rs 1,145. The company's net profit rose 8.45% to Rs 1283 crore on 4.08% growth in total income to Rs 9335 crore in Q1 June 2017 over Q1 June 2016. The result was announced after market hours yesterday, 18 July 2017.

Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose by 14%. Profit after tax before exceptional items, PAT (bei), rose 15% to Rs 1292 crore. Under volatile market conditions, the company's domestic consumer business grew at 6% and underlying volume growth remained flat. During the quarter, trade sentiment remained cautious, particularly in the run up to GST implementation. Despite high promotional intensity, stock pipelines remained low and varied across categories, channels and geographies. In these challenging circumstances the company managed to deliver yet another quarter of resilient and profitable growth.

Harish Manwani, Chairman commented that both growth and margin improvement were delivered through a combination of sustained innovations, a comprehensive savings program and a relentless focus on execution in the market place. The company remains positive on the medium term outlook for the industry and will continue to drive consumer value, which also delivers profitable volume driven growth for the company.

Overseas, most European bourses were trading higher as investors took stock of a series of corporate announcements from across the continent. Asian shares edged higher as optimism on China's economy underpinned Asian shares and commodities.

The US stock market ended mixed yesterday, 18 July 2017, but the Nasdaq Composite Index marked its first closing high since June. But the overall market was weighed by a slump in some of the US's biggest banks led by a decline in shares of Dow-component Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

The S&P 500 index edged up 1.47 points to close at 2,460.61. The Nasdaq Composite Index rose 29.87 points, or 0.5%, to end at 6,344.31. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 54.99 points, or 0.3%, to finish at 21,574.73.

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