Sensex, Nifty maintain uptrend; Midcap, Smallcap outperform

Moneycontrol Bureau12:58 pm Market Update: Equity benchmarks remained positive, though it lost some gains from day's high. The Sensex rose 112.80 points or 0.46 percent to 24548.46 and the Nifty advanced 32.85 points or 0.44 percent to 7455.30.About three shares advanced for every share declining on the Bombay Stock Exchange.Long build-up was seen in Cairn India, Bata India and Jubilant Foodworks. These stocks rallied 5 percent each in cash market. Cairn's open interest increased 6.5 percent followed by Jubilant Foodworks 5 percent and Bata India 4 percent.12:40 pm Interview: Force Motors reported a nearly three-fold jump in net profit at Rs 27.44 crore for the third quarter ended December 2015, compared with Rs 10 crore Year-on-Year (YoY). Prasan Firodia, MD, Force Motors, expects to see revenue growth of 25 percent by FY16-end. He also expects the company to grow 25-30 percent in FY17.

Firodia says margins will come in at 8-10 percent in FY17.

He also says the company is growing at a steady rate in the van segment, while the traveller product has seen 21 percent growth in the nine months of FY16.12:20 pm Market Outlook: Nandan Chakraborty, Axis Capital says India is less susceptible to global pain points as Indian growth recovery would gain traction in 2016.

According to him, midcaps are at risk as they usually do well when GDP growth surprises and/or when the broader market has run-up and pauses to catch its breath and midcaps catch up. However, both the conditions are not in place and hence midcaps remain vulnerable, he feels.