Comeback kid Sensex ends in green; HUL up 10%, banks fall
Hindustan Unilever was the star performer today with the shares soaring 12 percent intraday to touch a record high of Rs 698.95 on rebalancing of the stock‘s weightage by FTSE and MSCI in their indices.
July 18, 2013 / 08:13 IST
Equity benchmarks recouped some of previous day's losses on Wednesday with the Sensex closing near 20000 level. Short covering in many of the beaten down stocks and value buying in FMCG space helped the market, but gains were capped due to further fall in banks and metals shares.
The BSE Sensex rose 97.50 points or 0.49 percent to close at 19948.73, and the Nifty gained 18.05 points or 0.30 percent to finish at 5973.30.Hindustan Unilever was the star performer today, with the shares soaring 12 percent intraday to touch a record high of Rs 698.95 on rebalancing of the stock's weightage by FTSE and MSCI in their indices.FMCG major also hiked prices of its several personal care products. The stock closed at Rs 684.75 on the BSE, up 9.86 percent.In fact, the FMCG index spiked 3.4 percent on buying in every stock except Jubilant Foodworks. Cigarette major ITC rose 2.3 percent.However, it was yet another bearish session for the banks with the Bank Nifty falling more than 2 percent. It had crashed nearly 5 percent in previous session after RBI announced measures to curb rupee depreciation.HDFC Bank, the country’s second largest private sector lender, disappointed the street with its asset quality performance during the April-June quarter, sending shares 2.4 percent lower. The bank’s net profit grew by 30 percent year-on-year to Rs 1844 crore while gross non-performing asset increased 16 percent quarter-on-quarter to Rs 2719 crore."While the Nifty remains trapped between 5,500 and 6,239, it's worth noting that the CNX Bank Nifty displays a major double top pattern. A break below 10,875 would reinforce this bearish price action and support a downside target zone roughly between the 9,500-10,000 zone," Laurence Balanco of CLSA said.Shares of ICICI Bank, Tata Motors, M&M, State Bank of India and Tata Steel were down 1-3 percent.Axis Bank (down 0.3 percent) and Kotak Mahindra Bank (down 3 percent) will announce their earnings on Thursday.Telecom operator Bharti Airtel shed all its morning gains on profit booking, falling 1.7 percent. It also snapped four-day winning streak. The government raised foreign direct investment from 74 percent to 100 percent in telecom sector yesterday evening.Meanwhile, power stocks like NTPC and Tata Power gained 2-3 percent as empowered group of ministers will meet today to consider abolishing the priority ranking in natural gas allocation. This may allow diversion of kg d6 gas from fertiliser companies to power plants.Tata Consultancy Services shares rose 1.5 percent ahead of first quarter earnings that will be announced on Thursday. Analysts on an average expect the profit after tax of the country’s largest software services exporter to grow by 5.3 percent quarter-on-quarter to Rs 3787 crore. Its rivals Infosys and Wipro were up 0.7 percent and 3 percent, respectively.Index heavyweight Reliance Industries jumped 1.6 percent.Indian rupee remained volatile throughout the session, which moved around 59.30 level. It closed at 34 per dollar today, down 3 paise compared to previous day's closing of 59.31 per dollar.Foreign institutional investors offloaded Rs 26.09 crore worth of equity shares and domestic institutional investors sold Rs 73.86 crore worth of shares today, as per provisional data available on the exchange. Discover the latest Business News, Sensex, and Nifty updates. Obtain Personal Finance insights, tax queries, and expert opinions on Moneycontrol or download the Moneycontrol App to stay updated!
