Sensex up over 150 pts, Nifty tests 6200; Infosys, TCS gain

Moneycontrol BureauLive Market Commentary

11:50 am Current affairs:Hearing a plea in the 2G scam, the Supreme Court has said that a person can be tried by a court even if he or she is not made an accused or if their name is not in a chargesheet. The court has said that, however, this can be done only if there is evidence against them.

The statement from the Supreme Court could have repercussions for Bharti Cellular CMD Sunil Mittal and Essar's Ruia family in the 2G case. Mittal and the Ruias could potentially be tried in the 2G case.

11:40 am Infosys boardroom: Shibulal said he was witnessing demand coming back from his clients. With 85 percent of the company’s revenues coming from clients based in US and Europe, the company should hope the current economic recovery in developed countries would help its revenues (read full interview here.)

“We are seeing confidence coming back in our clients. But we expect [their] budgets to only remain stable from last year. Clients are still focused on cost,” he said. “We hope we will be able to build solutions to help reduce their costs.”

The CEO termed the spree of top management exits the company has seen in the past six months as “normal” for an organisation as large as Infosys. “These were great leaders with tremendous skills. They may have had aspirations larger than what Infosys could have offered,” he said. “Each of these transitions has been smooth.”

11:30 am Buzzing: Shares in Jubilant FoodWorks down 3 percent after marking their lowest intraday level since November 5 as index provider MSCI excludes the Domino's Pizza franchisee in India from its small cap indexes.

The stock will be excluded from the MSCI global small cap indexes effective on Tuesday, MSCI said in a statement late on Thursday.

The RBI said on Wednesday aggregate net purchases of equity shares in the company by foreign institutional investors had reached the prescribed limit.

11:20 am Trade deficit data: The December 2013 trade deficit narrowed to USD 10.14 billion from USD 17.19 billion in the same month last year. The reduction was driven by a 15.25 percent fall in imports, which came in at USD 36.49 percent while exports grew at 3.5 percent to USD 26.35 billion. Economists were expecting deficit to come at a range of USD 9 billion-USD 10.5 billion.

However, trade deficit grew from USD 9.22 billion on a month-on-month basis.

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The market has surged after a bit of struggle in early morning trade. The Sensex is up 165.72 points at 20879.09, and the Nifty gains 46.20 points at 6214.55. About 1133 shares have advanced, 783 shares declined, and 335 shares are unchanged.

Technology stocks boost the indices with Infosys, Wipro and TCS as major gainers in the Sensex. Reliance and Sun Pharma are other gainers.

Shares of Infosys jumped 2 percent intraday on Friday after it announced December quarter earnings. Investors are euphoric on the stock as the IT exporter raised its full year (FY14) dollar revenue guidance to 11.5-12 percent from 9-10 percent earlier, which was largely in-line with analysts' expectations of 11-12 percent.

During the period, its consolidated revenue increased 0.47 percent sequentially (up 25 percent Y-o-Y), in-line, to Rs 13,026 crore and dollar revenue climbed 1.6 percent Q-o-Q to USD 2,100 million in the quarter gone by.

"The year ahead looks exciting for the IT services industry. We believe the global economic environment has improved and clients are gaining confidence to invest in their strategic initiatives," S D Shibulal, CEO and managing director said.

 Among the losers are M&M, Coal India, Bajaj Auto, Hindalco and Sesa Sterlite.