Strong global cues, weak $, will push high beta stks higher

The week started off on a strong note for the market. The Nifty added another 50 points to get past 5,050. Global markets remained strong yet again. Asia and Europe put in good sessions. But today was a low volatility session, the reason for which trading volumes also clocked much lower at Rs 76,000 crore odd. Suzlon and DLF led a high beta showing today. Metal stocks emerged as the big gainers after global cues.

Last week we put on about 4.5%, the Nifty was just about stop short of 5,000 and today everybody wanted to see a steady stable start and the Nifty spending time above 5,000 and that is exactly what it did. It did not go down below 5,000 even for a moment. It spent most of the day above that 5,050 mark. So, it was a very low volatility kind of day.

The graph for the index is pretty much a straight line today and we didn’t see any of those sharp intraday kind of dips, the reason perhaps for which the volumes were pretty low today. The breadth was good, 900 advances to 300 declines roughly. So a very healthy 3:1 advance decline ratio.

Global markets have been holding up. The dollar is still weak and that is the perfect recipe for high beta sectors. Suzlon was one of the big stars in the largecap space today. DLF did well in real estate and metals across the board whether it was Tata Steel. Hindalco, SAIL or even Sterlite and some of the largecap names like ONGC, ICICI and State Bank also chipped in for the Nifty.

The only wrinkle in the Nifty was technology stocks, where fears of higher taxes overseas pegged back stocks like HCL Tech, Infosys and Wipro somewhat nothing major but there was just a mild bit of softness out there.

The breadth was good and we had some sparklers like Asian Electronics. It was a big move on that stock today. Everest Kanto which has been thrashed post results came out and did well today.

Some infrastructure plays like GVK and Lanco were up. Aban Offshore up around its QIP did well. Glenmark, which was in the news on account of milestone payments also had a good day. Barring the odd Mahindra Satyam which is still quite sluggish, we had a good day in midcap stocks today.