BSE Sensex maintains upmove; HDFC, L&T, TCS gainers

Moneycontrol Bureau
Live Market Commentary

10:50 am Gainer: State-owned oil companies gain on the Reserve Bank of India's move to provide dollars directly to these companies, reports Reuters.

The RBI announced late on Wednesday a special window "with immediate effect" to sell dollars through a designated bank to Indian Oil Corp Ltd , Hindustan Petroleum Corp and Bharat Petroleum Corp "until further notice".

IOC is up 1.1 percent, HPCL gains 1.2 percent while BPCL is up 2 percent.

Expectations of a hike in diesel prices after parliament's monsoon session ends on September 6 are also seen helping shares.
Oil and Natural Gas Corp Ltd also gains 2.1 percent.

10:40 am Buzzers: Shree Renuka has gained 2.5 percent on reports that the company is looking at all options to sell stake in Brazilian unit worth USD 1.3 billion to help in paring down debt at Rs 7500 crore.

Indraprastha Gas is up around 2 percent ahead of the SC ruling on the PNGRB-IGL case today.

JK Paper gains 7 percent as reports suggest that the company hikes product prices by 5 percent to offset rising input cost. 

10:30 am Trading calls: ICICI Direct has a sell call on Titan for a target of Rs 208-211.50 with a stop loss at Rs 219.

Karvy has a short call on Sun TV with a target of Rs 348-  Rs 355 with a stop loss at Rs 371.

10:20 am FII view: Jyotivardhan Jaipuria of Bank of America Merrill Lynch says that Syria issue has led to a spike in oil and gold prices compounding weak rupee. "While we think this will be short-lived, our base case for the Sensex is that it will be rangebound between 18,500 to 20,500. However, the market would stay below this range if the currency does not stabilize. Our stress case index target is 16,000 for the Sensex"

"With the growth expectations-driven rise in US Treasury yields, carry trade-funded positions in a variety of non-US dollar markets have been forced to reverse; and external funding for current account deficits has grown more dear. When such outflows also put pressure on local currencies, local stocks lose attraction by association. So the recent equity pullbacks strike us as more a 'pure' position-unwinding than a discounting of future expectations," adds Michael Kurtz of Nomura.
 

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The market has managed to maintain its uptrend on Thursday. After a positive start, the Sensex is up 111.32 points or 0.62 percent at 18107.47 while the Nifty adds 24.10 points or 0.46 percent at 5309.10.

About 788 shares have advanced, 603 shares declined, and 91 shares are unchanged.

Capital goods stocks are lending strength to the indices. Both the HDFC twins are on buyers list while L&T, TCS, Bharti Airtel are other lead gainers in the Sensex. On the losing side are Sun Pharma, Coal India, SBI, Maruti Suzuki and M&M.

Brent crude slipped below USD 116 a barrel on Thursday, taking a breather after clocking its strongest 2-day gain since January 2012 over fears of oil-supply disruptions in the Middle East as western nations prepared to get involved in the Syrian conflict.

The West is gearing up for a military strike against Syria in response to last week's chemical weapons attack, although US President Barack Obama faced new obstacles with British allies and US lawmakers that could delay any imminent action, reports Reuters.