Mumbai: After a day's breather, Indian stock markets today continued to rise with both Sensex and Nifty logging fresh closing highs on fag-end buying in an otherwise choppy session ahead of the Lok Sabha poll outcome. A fall in April wholesale inflation also provided some succor even as cues from Asia and Europe were mixed.
The BSE 30-share Sensex resumed almost stable but immediately bounced back to a high of 23,971.78, up almost 157 points on sustained capital inflows and on hopes that new government will prop up growth and quicken economic recovery. However, participants appeared to turn jittery and Sensex fell to a low of 23,742.75.
Some late buying helped Sensex rebound to a new closing peak of 23,905.60, showing a recovery of 90.48 points or 0.38 per cent. Yesterday, it had declined 56.11 points from its previous closing peak of 23,871.23. “For second consecutive session, the benchmarks were remained in a narrow range and closed slightly in green...investors opted to remain on sidelines ahead of final results of elections on May 16,” said Jayant Manglik,
President-retail distribution, Religare Securities Limited. “All eyes are now glued on final election outcome and expecting it to fall in line with exit poll numbers. Any major deviation may attract negativity but so far all indications are in the favor of northward bias to prevail,” he added. Exit polls have projected that BJP will emerge as the single largest party.
Smart buying in HDFC Bank, HDFC, ONGC, RIL, ITC, Infosys, HUL, Sun Pharma, Axis Bank, NTPC, M&M and Tata Steel acted as support, while falls in ICICI Bank, L&T, Bajaj Auto, TCS, Tata Motors and Wipro, limited the gains.
Similarly, the 50-issue CNX Nifty of the NSE also moved erratically in a range of 7,152.55 and 7,082.55 before recording a new closing high of 7,123.15. It gained 14.40 points or 0.20 per cent today over Wednesday's closing of 7,108.75 when it had ended flat.
Bajaj Auto was top loser from the Sensex pack with a fall of 4.28 per cent after company reported weak Q4 results.
Meanwhile, Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 1,520.08 crore yesterday, as per provisional data from the stock exchanges.
Jignesh Chaudhary, Head of Research, Veracity Broking
Services said: “Investors traded in a watchful manner before the outcome election results.”
To ring fence the capital market from possible manipulations against the backdrop of election results tomorrow, Sebi as well as bourses and other market entities have prepared an elaborate vigil mechanism.
Besides, RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan has said that RBI will infuse liquidity tomorrow, if needed. RBI has discussed contingency plans with Finance Ministry and Sebi to deal with market volatility tomorrow, he added.
Rupee was last trading strong at 59.25 against dollar.
Elsewhere in Asia, stock markets closed mixed. Key indices from China, Japan and South Korea finished weak while from Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan settled better. European stocks, however, trading lower in their late morning deals.
Back home, 17 scrips out the 30-share Sensex pack endedhigher while others ended lower. Major gainers were Tata Power (3.07 per cent), NTPC (2.95 per cent), ONGC (2.56 per cent), Gail India (2.16 per cent), HUL (2.08 per cent), Tata Steel (1.89 per cent) and Sun Pharma (1.72 per cent).
HDFC Bank (1.66 per cent), HDFC (1.59 per cent), Axis Bank (1.53 per cent), Maruti Suzuki (1.47 per cent) and M&M (1.28 per cent) also gained.
On the other hand, Hindalco dropped by 1.98 per cent, Sesa Sterlite 1.88 per cent, Wipro 1.50 per cent, Dr Reddy's 1.46 per cent, L&T 1.20 per cent and ICICI Bank 1.17 per cent.
Among the S&P BSE sectoral indices, Consumer Durables rose by 1.52 per cent, followed by Power 0.97 per cent and Oil&Gas 0.95 per cent while Realty fell by 1.11 per cent, Capital Goods slipped 0.90 per cent.
Reflecting heavy profit-selling in second-line stocks, the total market breadth turned negative as 1,743 stocks finished in red while 1,156 stocks ended with gains. The total turnover dropped to Rs 3,223.00 crore from Rs 3,547.55 crore yesterday.
