Post session - Quick review

Momentum remained in the favour of bulls, which going berserk on the bourses in the previous trading session of trade remained hungry for further gains. Although benchmarks equity indices in the noon deals appeared to be exhausted with their run up rally, the lost momentum was soon restored in the last leg of the trade thanks to reassuring third quarter corporate results and frenzied buying in rate sensitive counters, viz., Realty, Bankex long with Technology counters. South Indian Bank and Axis Bank, were the two result announcing stocks that cheered investors, besides Tata Consultancy Services’ stocks, which managed to notch up gains on beating street estimates with Q3FY13 earning. Tata Consultancy Services topped market expectations on Monday with a third quarter net profit of Rs 3,551 crore, up 1 percent (up 23 percent from a year ago), helped by new deal wins. India's largest software services exporter's revenue rose 3 percent sequentially (22 percent year-on-year) to Rs 16,070 crore.

While, Axis Bank and South Indian bank too luring investors’ interest, rallied over two percent on reporting good earning. Driven by three-pronged reasons: lower provisions against bad loans, higher net interest income and robust fee income, India's third largest private sector lender Axis Bank's October-December quarter net profit scaled up to a forecast beating 22% year-on-year to 1,347 crore. Additionally, private sector lender South Indian Bank has reported a better-than-expected growth of 25.3 percent year-on-year in net profit at Rs 128.2 crore for the third quarter of current financial year 2012-13, helped by reduced non-performing assets.

The awe-inspiring session of trade, saw benchmark 30 share index, Sensex and widely followed 50 share index, Nifty, hitting above the psychological 20,000 and 6050 respective levels, it’s highest in last two years. However, the bout of profit-booking, which was witnessed in the dying hours of trade, dragged Sensex sub 20,000 level, while Nifty, managed to close above its 6050 crucial mark, a level which was last seen on January 5, 2011. However, trade was not so blissful for broader indices as Smallcap index failed to end the session in green.

However, global cues remained unsupportive as European counters traded cautiously in the early deals as a speech by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke failed to inspire traders. Moreover, Asian equity indices made a mixed close as worries about the US debt ceiling impasse led investors to take profit after a strong recent run. However, mainland Chinese stocks extended their rally on more buying amid hopes for greater foreign participation in the domestic markets, while Japanese shares too advanced after the yen dropped to multiyear lows on Monday.

Closer home, pressure from Metal and Information Technology (IT) stocks, limited the further upside of the bourses. Rupee appreciation mainly worked against software provider stocks, which derive lion share of their revenue from exports. However, Cement stocks too emerged as bright spot in trade, with Ambuja Cement, ACC and UltraTech Cement, all registering gains of over 1% on decision to fight back cartelisation case. Shares of cement companies rallied on news of them drawing up plans to question the legality of the cartelisation case when it comes up for hearing before the Competition Appellate Tribunal (Compat) on January 29. Additionally, Telecom stocks, i.e., Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular, etc saw a sudden surge in the late trade on talks of imposition of voice tariff as early as next week. On the other hand, stocks from Sugar space, namely, Shree Renuka Sugars, Bajaj Hindusthan, Balrampur Chini and EID Parry, ended mixed even after the government liberalized the procedure for exports of pharmaceutical grade and specialty sugar.

The market breadth on the BSE ended negative; advances and declining stocks were in a ratio of 827:829while 1375 scrips remained unchanged. (Provisional)

The BSE Sensex gained 83.22 points or 0.42% and settled at 19989.63. The index touched a high and a low of 20036.82 and 19881.78 respectively. 17 stocks were seen advancing while 13 stocks were declining on the index (Provisional)

The BSE Mid-cap index was up by 0.56% while Small-cap index was up by 0.37%. (Provisional)

On the BSE Sectoral front, Realty was up by 1.24%, Bankex up by 0.78%, TECk up by 0.68%, Consumer Durables up by 0.61% and FMCG up 0.47% were the top gainers, while Metal down by 0.29%, IT down by 0.19% and Power down by 0.01% were the only losers in the space. (Provisional)

The top gainers on the Sensex were Bharti Airtel up by 5.16%, ITC up 1.98%, ICICI Bank up 1.97%, Tata Power up by 1.84% and Bajaj Auto up 1.20%, while, Sterlite Industries down by 1.52%, Coal India down by 1.51%, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 0.88%, Jindal Steel down by 0.75% and Sun Pharma down by 0.71% were the top losers in the index. (Provisional)

Meanwhile, the government in next three weeks will decide on pricing of spectrum that will be sold in the second round of auction beginning March 11. The government is likely to raise Rs 45,000 crore from the spectrum sale that is expected to be completed before March end.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court yesterday allowed mobile phone operators, whose licenses were due to be revoked this week as per an earlier court order, to continue service till February 4. The time was given as the court wanted certain answers from the government on the status and floor price of the coming re-auction of 2G spectrum. However, Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had urged the court to allow companies to operate until the next airwave auction.

Telecom Minister Kabil Sibal, affirmed Apex Court order as “positive” and believes that spectrum pricing issues will be decided before February 4, when the apex court will again hear the matter. “I think it’s a positive sign and I am sure that just as the previous auction process was completed without any problem the new auctions will also be completed within the time-frame and before the end of March,” Sibal said.

However, last time around, about 70 percent of the airwaves went unsold in the November auction that raised Rs 9,410 crore, less than 25 percent of the amount the government was targeting to raise from spectrum sale this fiscal.

India VIX, a gauge for markets short term expectation of volatility lost 0.87% at 13.58 from its previous close of 13.70 on Monday. (Provisional)

The S&P CNX Nifty gained 34.55 points or 0.57% to settle at 6,058.60. The index touched high and low of 6,068.50 and 6,018.60 respectively. 29 stocks advanced against 21 declining ones on the index. (Provisional)

The top gainers on the Nifty were Bharti Airtel was up by 5.23%, Ambuja Cement up by 4.03%, BPCL up by 3.39%, Axis Bank up by 3.02% and Ultra Tech Cement was up by 2.88%. On the other hand, Sesa Goa down by 1.70%, Coal India down by 1.21%, HCL Tech down by 1.16%, Asian Paints down by 0.95% and Reliance Infrastructure down by 0.81% were the top losers. (Provisional)

The European markets were trading in green with, France’s CAC 40 up by 0.17%, Germany’s DAX up by 0.06% and the United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 up by 0.09%.

Asian markets ended mixed on Tuesday as investors booked some profit after a recent strong recent run, on concerns about the U.S. debt ceiling. Japan’s Nikkei closed higher on the back of the yen's slide the previous day as expectations grew that strong political pressure will prompt the Bank of Japan to deliver bold monetary easing measures. Chinese stocks went home with a green mark on expectation for greater foreign participation in the domestic markets. However, Hong Kong market closed lower, as telecom firms were under pressure, while South Korea's stocks closed in negative territory, weighed down by foreign investors, who extended their selling streak to the fourth consecutive session.