The Indian markets went for an impressive recovery rally in last session with benchmark indices gaining near to, two percent for the day. The bold decision of the government to go for steepest ever hike in petrol prices, to help the ailing oil marketing companies was taken as its turn to reforms again. Today, on the last trading day of the week the mood is likely to remain cautious and the indices may consolidate, profit booking too cannot be ruled out in some of the high fliers of last session. The PSU OMCs too are likely to remain under pressure on talk of some roll back in the price hike, some reports are stating that the government may reconsider upto 50 percent cut, then it would be a setback for them. An Empowered Group of Ministers headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee is scheduled to meet today to take a decision on raising prices of diesel and liquefied petroleum gas may take a pause before going for any hike now. The steel stocks are likely to be in focus as the government has called a meeting of steel makers, private and public sector both, to understand the costing and the reasons for the increase in prices of some of the products.
Also there will be lots of important result announcements to keep the markets buzzing. BPCL, Crompton Greaves, Great Offshore, Gujarat Fluorochem, Gujarat Mnrl, ITC, Mirc Electronics, NHPC, Reliance Infra, Sun TV Network, Suzlon Energy and Trident are among the many to announce their numbers today.
The US markets despite some recovery in late trade made a mixed closing, as the concern about Greece's future kept looming large, while there were mixed economic report from the domestic front that gave investors little reason to take risk. The Asian markets too are not looking very convinced with any positive development in Europe, while there was speculation that Chinese biggest banks may fall short of loan targets, weighing down the investors sentiments.
Back home, stock markets in India showed a stupendous performance on Thursday with the benchmark equity indices vehemently rallying by close to two percent, registering the highest intraday gain seen since March 30. The key gauges showed a remarkable bounce back after drifting into the negative territory for a brief period in early trades and halted the two session declining streak, recovering all the losses they suffered in last two sessions. The session was also marred by volatility as the rally seemed to be fizzling out when investors started booking partial profits around the psychological 16,200 (Sensex) and 4,900 (Nifty) levels in early afternoon trades. However, sanguinity prevailed at the end as encouraging developments from domestic front along with rally in European peers helped the local markets to snap the session at the highpoint of the day. Sentiments got buttressed in the session amid speculations that Reserve Bank of India took measures to rein the depreciating run of the beleaguered Indian currency, which recovered from the day’s lows it hit earlier in the session. Besides, the government’s decision to hike prices of petrol overnight by as high as Rs 7.50 per litre instilled some hopes among market participants that the government would now take certain bold steps to lift sentiments in the markets. Reports showed that government is now looking at bringing reforms back on track by cajoling key allies and addressing their concerns on foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail and aviation soon. Stocks from the Oil & Gas pocket rallied fervently in the session with the upstream ONGC shooting up by about six percent amid expectations that government may soon hike diesel prices as well. However, downstream oil marketing PSUs which showed strength early in the session failed to sustain the momentum and shares of companies like HPCL and IOC plunged by around a percent. Meanwhile, investors were also seen piling up positions across the board with the rate sensitive Bankex index being the top gainer with over two percent gains. Though there were no laggards in BSE’s sectoral space, however some individual names like Maruti Suzuki, TCS and BHEL languished in the negative terrain. Finally, the BSE Sensex surged 274.20 points or 1.72% to settle at 16,222.30, while the S&P CNX Nifty climbed by 85.75 points or 1.77% to close at 4,921.40.
