Sensex up over 100 pts, Bank Nifty gains 1%; Bharti weak

Moneycontrol BureauLive Market Commentary

9:55 am Market check: Banking stocks are rallying, with the Bank Nifty up over 1 percent. The Sensex is up 129.27 points at 20593.33, and the Nifty is up 41.60 points at 6114.90. About 950 shares have advanced, 466 shares declined, and 67 shares are unchanged.

9:50 am CII meet: Members from the Congress, Bhartiya Janata Party and the newest entrant Aam Aadmi Party laid claim to the dais at the national council meeting of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) yesterday to unveil their economic agenda for the forthcoming national elections in the presence of the country’s top industrialists.

The Congress sent one of its most pro-reform leaders, Anand Sharma, who blamed the principal opposition party, BJP, for delaying several key legislations.

“All our decisions in the past five years were challenged [by the opposition],” the commerce minister said, adding that “partisan politics had done a lot of damage” to the country. “Even if have to sit in the opposition after the elections, we will be committed to the nation unlike the present opposition that keeps blocking important decisions.”

9:40 am Brokerage reaction: Brokerage house Citi does not see automobile companies gaining much from the excise duties announced in the Interim Budget on Monday.

"While this appears to be a positive catalyst for pushing demand growth in an otherwise adverse macro environment, upsides appear limited for now, given, 1) this rate cut is effective only for one month in FY14 and 1QFY15, given it was an interim budget and 2) further continuation of the new low rates will depend on the policy of the next government, hence preventing significant price cuts, we believe," said the Citi note.

9:30 am FII view: Jyotivardhan Jaipuria, Bank of America Merrill Lynch expects the market to correct to 19,000-19,500 levels in near-term. "Our year-end target of 23,500 is driven by a positive election outcomes and rate cuts by the RBI, " he said.

Neelkanth Mishra, Credit Suisse elaborates, "With elections round the corner, we do not expect any incremental slowdown in government spending at the bottom of the pyramid. The lull in infrastructure/heavy investment can though last for at least next six months. We have a buy on Maruti, ITC, Godrej Consumer and sell on L&T, BHEL & SBI."

9:20 am Big deal: Shares of Bharti Airtel are weak as it announced buying out Loop Mobile at Rs 700 crore. As per the agreement, Loop will use Rs 400 crore to repay debt while rest to go to the promoters. The deal will boost Bharti Airtel with Loop Mobile’s 3 million subscribers in Mumba, in addition to its over 4 million subscribers.  

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 The market has opened on a flat note, a day after FM P Chidambaram presented Vote on Account in the Parliament. The Sensex is down 8.14 points at 20455.92, and the Nifty is down 2.00 points at 6071.30.

About 191 shares have advanced, 106 shares declined, and 28 shares are unchanged.

Tata Power, Sesa Sterlite, Bharti Airtel, ITC and L&T are major laggrads in the Sensex. Among the gainers are Cipla, HDFC, M&M, NTPC and Maruti.

The Indian rupee opened marginally lower by 11 paise at 61.95 per dollar versus 61.84 Monday.

The yen inched down against its major counterparts in early trade on Tuesday, as investors waited to see if the Bank of Japan would hold policy steady as expected and perhaps hint at the possibility of further easing ahead.The dollar rose about 0.2 percent to 102.10 yen, pulling away from a nearly two-week low of 101.37 yen hit in the previous session, while the euro also added about 0.2 percent on the day to 139.91 yen.

Ashutosh Raina of HDFC Bank said, "Vote on Account yesterday cheered the markets due to the fact that FM has been able to meet his fiscal targets.The resultant rally in stocks extended to currencies as well with the dollar-rupee pair breaching 62/USD."

"The next support is at 61.70/USD, break of which opens gates to 61/USD. Expect rupee to trade between 61.70-62.40/USD."

The Indian equity market is likely to open flat at 6092 according to SGX Nifty. The market rose 97 points on Monday followed by the Vote on Account presented by Finance Minister P Chidambaram.

Meanwhile, Asian markets opened mixed this morning. The Nikkei raced away to triple digit gains led by a weaker yen. European markets too closed mixed while the US markets were shut for trade.