Another big rally on D-street
Strong Global cues and sharp fall in the crude oil prices compelled the markets to start off with a flyer. The bulls had a historic day as they performed extremely well leaving the bears far away. Further later in the day impressive November Industrial Production numbers which rose by 14.4% from year ago aided the key indices to close above their respective highs. The bulls recovered all its losses slashing through its all time highs entering in a new territory as Banking, Technology and Metal indexes leading from front with Bank index gaining 6.5%. Finally, the BSE benchmark Sensex surged by 425 points to close above its all time high at 14056. NSE Nifty advanced 110 points to close at a new peak of 4052.
SAIL surged by over 4.9% to Rs90 after the company announced that they would spend about Rs1 Trillion on expansion. The scrip touched an intra-day high of Rs91 and a low of Rs86 and recorded volumes of over 88,00,000 shares on NSE.
Marico rallied over 6% to Rs567 after the Board of Directors of the company approved splitting each share into 10. The scrip touched an intra-day high of Rs599 and a low of Rs534 and recorded volumes of over 97,000 shares on NSE.
Hindustan Zinc surged 3% to Rs807 after the company announced its Q3 result with net profit at Rs13.35bn (up 305%) and revenues at Rs25.4 (up 173%). The scrip touched an intra-day high of Rs825 and a low of Rs799 and recorded volumes of over 2,00,000 shares on NSE.
JP Associates advanced 2.6% to Rs725 after the company announced its Q3 result with net profit at Rs1.02bn (up 73%) and total income at Rs9.3bn (up 13%) and to pay Rs2 as mid-year dividend. The scrip touched an intra-day high of Rs741 and a low of Rs715 and recorded volumes of over 18,00,000 shares on NSE.
Banking stocks were the star performers after the cabinet in New Delhi approved a plan to allow the central bank to lower the limit of government bonds lenders must hold. Heavy weight ICICI Bank surged nearly 9% to Rs972, HDFC Bank jumped 7.2% to Rs1068 and SBI surged over 6% to Rs1219. Bank of India rose by over 7.5% to Rs206, OBC advanced 6.6% to Rs225 and Bank of Baroda was up by 6.6% to Rs240 were the major among the Mid-Cap stocks.
Metal stocks also were among the major gainers as metal prices on LME firmed up. Sterlite Industries rose by 1.9% to Rs539, Hindalco gained 1.4% to Rs170, Tisco was up by 1.3% to Rs468 and National Aluminum added 1.1% to Rs212.
Pharma stocks also recorded healthy gains. Cipla advanced 3.5% to Rs225, Dr Reddy’s Lab gained by 2.3% to Rs809, Sun Pharma rose 1.7% to Rs1030 and Aurobindo Pharma added 1.5% to Rs727.
The Capital Good stocks also ended with smart gains. BHEL, Siemens, L&T and ABB were among the major gainers.
Well, for the bulls the earnings season has got off to a bright start with Infosys registering relatively moderate results in Q3 FY07, which were just in line with expectations. However, it remains to be seen whether they can hold on to these gains or again the bulls may start to feel dizzy at the top. There’s no point in getting euphoric as all the good news have started to trickle in at the same time. The bulls still have a long way to travel through the earning season, which has just started.