BSE Sensex up for 3rd day; Coal India, Hero Moto, RIL shine

Moneycontrol Bureau

Key equity benchmarks surged in the late afternoon trade to extend its rally for three consecutive sessions after big rout last week. The news of monsoon expected to hit India in the next 3-4 days helped lift the sentiment considering agriculture contributes significantly to the country’s growth.

The Sensex closed at 20160, up 130 points and the Nifty ended at 6111.25, up 28 points. The breadth of the market was neutral. About 1196 shares advanced, 1142 shares declined, and 171 shares were unchanged. 
 
Major gainers in the Nifty were Hero Motocorp, Jaiprakash Associates, BHEL, Coal India and Mahindra and Mahindra, up between 3 to 6 percent.

Laggards included Ranbaxy Labs, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Sun Pharma, UltraTech Cement and SBI, down 1 to 2 percent.

Brokers said the market remained in bullish mode on foreign funds buying, following steady inflow of positive reports from blue chip stocks. Besides, short-covering ahead of expiry of May contract on Thursday also boosted the market sentiment, said PTI.

"India is likely to get a bigger share of foreign flows amongst emerging markets in the next few months," said Prabhat Awashthi of Nomura Financial Advisory today.

He, however, cautions that analysts are not very bullish on India getting on stable growth trajectory, going forward. He also believes that rate cuts are not necessary if economic dynamics are moving in right direction.

Shares of Coal India rallied to 3-month high on better-than-expected earnings and price hike. The overhang of offer for sale however remains on the stock.

Reliance Industries extended its rally and surged another 2 percent today. Over 2 crore shares changed hands on the National Stock Exchange at Rs 848 via block deal.

Earnings Central

State-run GAIL India's March quarter profit more than halved to Rs 618 crore quarter-on-quarter on higher employee cost and depreciation cost. Sales also declined marginally to Rs 12408 crore.

Colgate Palmolive disappointed the street with its fourth quarter net profit at Rs 123 crore as against Rs 131 crore in a year ago period. The fall in bottomline was due to higher advertisement spends. Net sales grew slightly higher-than-expected 18.3 percent to Rs 811.6 crore.