Choppy Sensex stays up; private banks gain, RIL, TCS down

The BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty stayed higher amid choppy trade, supported by private banks, FMCG, auto and metals stocks. However, the fall in Reliance Industries, TCS, Infosys, L&T and Bharti Airtel has capped the upside.

In a special trading session today, the BSE benchmark rose 27.26 points or 0.16% to 17,161.51 and the NSE benchmark went up 11 points to 5,201.40.

Private banks continued to gain since yesterday post better than expected March quarter numbers reported by ICICI Bank and Axis Bank yesterday; these stocks went up 0.8% and 1.5%, respectively. HDFC Bank gained 0.55% while rival State Bank of India was flat.

Maruti Suzuki rallied 1% ahead of fourth quarter numbers today. Analysts on average expect the top car maker to report a growth of 2.5 times quarter-on-quarter in its net profit of Rs 530 crore.

Among other, Bajaj Auto, Hero Motocorp and Mahindra & Mahindra were up 0.3-0.6% ahead of auto sales numbers for April that to be announced on next week.

State-owned ONGC and BHEL were up 0.5%. However, TCS, Reliance Industries, L&T, Coal India and Tata Power were down 0.2-0.6%.