Post Session: Quick Review

Friday witnessed a steady session of trade, wherein benchmarks rode the momentum set in the previous trading session. Local equity markets after making a good start did not once look back, though bouts of selling pressure occurred in frequent interval that were easily countered by bulls, which lifted the markets at day’s high by close of trade. Both, Sensex and Nifty, gathering gains of close to 1.5%, settled just shy of the crucial 24,700 and past the psychological 7,350 marks respectively. Meanwhile, broader indices outperforming larger peers for yet another session, settled with gains of close to two percent. For the week, both Sensex and Nifty settled with gains of over 2%.

Persistent buying activities by domestic and foreign investors who expect the new Government to take measures for reviving business and investments climate in the country, bolstered the sentiment at Dalal Street. Though, some profit-booking was witnessed in knee-jerk reaction to the result of nation’s biggest lender State Bank of India, which reported a decline in net profit of 20.89% to Rs 14173.77 crore for the year ended March 31, 2014 and drop of 7.83% in its net profit for just concluded quarter to Rs 3040.74 crore as compared to Rs 3299.22 crore in same quarter last year, benchmarks soon witnessed recovery amidst positive global cues.

On the global front, Asian shares edged up to one-year highs on Friday as investors welcomed signs of improving momentum in the world's biggest economies, with Tokyo's Nikkei scoring its first weekly gain in nearly a month, thanks to a weaker yen. However, European shares showed choppy trade on Friday, moving further away from last week's six-year highs in early deals and later recovering with investors trading cautiously ahead of European and Ukrainian election results.

Closer home, all the sectoral indices on BSE ended into positive territory, barring stocks from Consumer Durables and Fast Moving Consumer Goods counters which witnessed some profit-booking. Consumer Durable stocks which were chiefly responsible for the gains at Indian equity markets in previous trading session witnessed beating in today’s trade. On the flip side, stocks from Power, Capital Goods and Realty counters were the top gainers of the session. The euphoria in the Power sector was witnessed on account of buzz that the incoming government will have a major thrust on the area, while infra and realty stocks witnessed buying on hopes of some recovery of the economy coming out of stagflation type of situation.  The market breadth on the BSE ended positive; advances and declining stocks were in a ratio of 2193:846, while 89 scrips remained unchanged. (Provisional)

The BSE Sensex gained 318.95 points or 1.31% to settle at 24693.35. The index touched a high and a low of 24745.86 and 24470.78 respectively. Among the 30-share Sensex, 23 stocks gained, while 7 stocks declined. (Provisional)

The broader indices ended in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 1.76% and Small cap index was up by 1.87%. (Provisional)

On the BSE Sectoral front, PSU up by 3.87%, Power up by 3.66%, Oil & Gas up by 2.16%, Capital Goods up by 2.15% and Realty up by 2.10% were the gainers while, Consumer Durables down by 0.82% and   FMCG down by 0.47%, were the losers in the space. (Provisional)

The top gainers on the Sensex were SBI up 10.20%, Tata Power up by 6.99%, Maruti Suzuki up by 5.55%, NTPC up by 5.24% and ONGC up by 3.80%.  On the flip side, the key losers were HDFC Bank down by 1.76%, Hindalco Industries down by 1.48%, Infosys down by 1.36%, ITC down by 1.12% and Hindustan Unilever down by 0.44%. (Provisional)

Meanwhile, the Department of Disinvestment (DoD) is of the view that new government could look at the possibility of strategic sale of state-owned enterprises in the non-core sectors like textiles, petrochemical and transport equipments in order to meet the ambitious disinvestment target of Rs 51,925 crore this fiscal. These views formed part of the suggestions made by the DoD for new government which will assume office on May 26.

The department further noted that move to divest entire stake in the non-strategic public sector units (PSUs) would help the government in realising the true value of the investments made in setting up of these firms.

During the interim budget, the government proposed to mobilise Rs 15,000 crore from the stake sale in HZL and Balco. It presently holds 29.54 percent share in HZL and 49 percent in Bharat Aluminium Company (Balco). Further, the government hoped to garner Rs 36,925 crore from disinvestment in different PSUs in 2014-15. In the previous fiscal year, the Government was able to disinvest only around Rs 16,000 crore as against the set target of Rs 40,000 crore mainly on account of subdued economic conditions.

India Inc had also expressed the need for new government to divest stake in the top 10 cash-rich PSUs to raise around Rs 1 lakh crore, which could have been used to provide much-needed push to economic growth and tide over revenue shortfall. India Inc had highlighted that the new government should take advantage of robust state of domestic stock markets helped by heavy inflow of funds from the foreign institutional investors (FIIs). The disinvestment at high level in cash-rich PSUs will help the new government to improve its revenue, which faces constraint of lower tax earnings because of slowdown in economy.

India VIX, a gauge for markets short term expectation lost 0.72% at 17.70 from its previous close of 17.83 on Thursday. (Provisional)

The CNX Nifty gained 97.35 points or 1.34% to settle at 7,373.75. The index touched high and low of 7,381.00 and 7,293.90 respectively. Out of 50 stocks in Nifty, 35 stocks ended in the green and 14 in red while 1 stock remained unchanged.

The major gainers of the Nifty were SBI up 10.11%, Tata Power up by 6.99%, Jindal Steel up by 6.99%, IDFC up by 5.85% and Maruti up by 5.59%.  On the flip side, the key losers were Hindalco down by 1.68%, HDFC Bank down by 1.67%, Infosys down by 1.51%, Kotak Bank down by 1.30% and ITC down by 1.26%. (Provisional)

Most of European markets were trading in green; France’s CAC 40 was up by 0.11%, UK’s FTSE 100 was down by 0.21% and Germany’s DAX was up by 0.20%.

The Asian markets concluded Friday’s trade mostly in green, heading for a four-month high, after data showed US manufacturing expanded and as the yen held yesterday’s losses. Japan’s trade deficit narrowed again last month as a sales tax hike weighed on imports - denting demand for foreign fruit, lobsters and crude oil - while shipments of goods to overseas markets picked up pace. The finance ministry data showed the trade deficit shrank 7.8% year on year in April, with Japan logging a shortfall of 808.9 billion yen ($8 billion) against the year-before deficit of 877.4 billion yen. Industrial production in Taiwan rose more-than-expected last month. Taiwanese Industrial Production rose to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.80%, from 3.05% in the preceding month.