Sensex +ve amid volatility; banks, IT, realty, power up

At 11:53 hours IST, the volatility continued in the Nifty though the equity benchmarks were trading higher. Shares of technology, realty, banking, oil marketing, power companies along with ONGC, HUL and SAIL were witnessing buying interest.

However, selling continued in capital goods along with PNB, Bharti, Reliance Industries, Sun Pharma, ITC, Cairn, Tata Steel, Nalco, Hindalco and Axis Bank.

The Nifty was up 13 points, to 4,526 and the Sensex gained 62 points at 15,234. The broader indices were marginally up. The market breadth was positive; about 1511 shares advanced while 1202 shares declined on the BSE. Nearly 457 shares were unchanged.

In the technology space, Patni Computer shot up 9.20% on good Q2CY09 numbers (the company expects Q3 revenue at $163-165 million). Mphasis, TCS, Wipro, HCL Tech, Tech Mahindra and Infosys were up 1.5-4%.

Banking stocks like HDFC Bank, Union Bank, Canara Bank, SBI, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra and Bank of Baroda gained 0.5-1.7%.

In the realty space, Omaxe, Orbit Corporation, DLF, HDIL and Unitech went up 1-3%. In the power space, Lanco Infratech, Power Grid Corp, Neyveli Lignite, Reliance Infrastructure, Torrent Power, NTPC and Reliance Power were up 1-4%.

In the oil & gas space, IOC and BPCL surged over 3%. ONGC and GAIL were up 1.7% and 1%, respectively. However, Reliance Industries was down 0.5%.

Inflation for the week-ended July 18 has came in at -1.54% versus -1.17% on week-on-week basis (WoW). For week-ended May 23 it has been revised to 1.34% as against 0.48% (Provisional figure). WPI for all commodities was up 0.04% at 236.8.

On the next page - see how Indian markets performed in the last couple of hours