Sensex up on Europe gains; Karnataka Bank surges 6%

Moneycontrol Bureau
Live Market Commentary

02:59pm LIC Chairman SK Roy says total investment in FY14 will be Rs 2.25 lakh crore. He expects growth of 13 percent in premium collection in FY14. Roy is looking at FMCG and banking with great deal of interest. Also Read - Risk that markets aren't fully bracing for 02:50pm Shriram City Union Finance's trading volumes spiked nearly 22 times today to 6,02,293 equity shares as compared to its five-day average of 27,679 shares after block deals worth Rs 47 crore on National Stock Exchange. Strides Arcolab dropped nearly 6 percent. More than Rs 29 crore worth of equity shares changed hands at an average price of Rs 790 apiece via three block deals in afternoon trade. Also Read - Kirit Parikh panel on EPP of petro products may meet today 02:40pm Power Grid Corporation shares topped the buying list among Nifty 50, rising 4.37 percent followed by Sun Pharma and Bank of Baroda with 3-3.6 percent gains. Eicher Motors' volumes jumped after a block deal worth Rs 23.70 crore on the National Stock Exchange. The stock rose 1 percent and 64,672 equity shares changed hands at Rs 3,665 apiece. Also Read - Now, Mukesh Ambani picks up stake in Epic TV 02:30pm Anant Raj soared nearly 13 percent amid hefty volumes after the real estate developer received licence from Haryana government to set up residential colony. The company says residential colony will have saleable area of 2.8 million square feet. Anant Raj further says it also gets licence to set up commercial projects at Gurgaon, which will have saleable area of 0.8 million square feet. Also Read - Pick infra, power now; see poor Q1 for Sensex cos: UTI MF 02:20pm Karnataka Bank shares gained nearly 6 percent. The bank has joined hands with Reliance Capital by entering into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for financing the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) through co-financing arrangement. 02:15pm Equity benchmarks gained strength again in afternoon trade following further upmove in European markets on Greek deal. The BSE Sensex is up 129.71 points or 0.67 percent at 19454.48, and the Nifty is up 48.10 points or 0.83 percent at 5859.65. Britain's FTSE and Germany's DAX rallied over 1 percent while France's CAC rose 0.8 percent. The european union finance ministers agreed to give greece some cash, but the 6.8 billion euro sum was not as much as Athens had hoped for. European finance ministers said this month they will give greece 2.5 billion euros with the rest coming later, after the greek government pushes forward on public sector reforms. Indian rupee gained 50 paise to 60.10 per dollar after the Reserve Bank of India and Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) clamped down on open positions that banks and non banks can take in the currency futures market. According to Ananth Narayan of Standard Chartered Bank, combination of these measures has helped the rupee some extend. Though these measures can be painful in the short term – they may restrict liquidity, increase volatility and transaction cost for market participants, but such controls help in the medium to long run, he added. Also Read: Indian rupee has resistance at 61.20-61.44: ICICIdirect.com