Sensex extends gains, Nifty reclaims 7950 on F&O expiry day

Moneycontrol Bureau

09:40am FII View

Bharat Iyer, JPMorgan says with Indian equities rallying sharply over the last six months, the brokerage re-visit market valuations based on a range of parameters.

“Valuation models based on assets or long-term cash flows - price / book versus return on equity and dividend discount suggest a potential upside of 8-10 percent through to the end of the fiscal year,” he adds.

09:15am Equity benchmarks extended gains on Thursday, the expiry day for August derivative contracts. The Sensex rose 66.62 points to 26626.77 and the Nifty climbed 19.80 points to 7955.85.

About 688 shares have advanced, 221 shares declined, and 31 shares are unchanged.  Shares of Larsen and Toubro, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, Bharti Airtel, Bajaj Auto, Cairn India, BPCL and HCL Technologies gained 0.8-0.9 percent. However, Hero Motocorp, Hindalco Industries, Sun Pharma, Infosys, ONGC and TCS fell 0.2-0.7 percent.

The Indian rupee opened marginally higher at 60.39 per dollar on Thursday as against previous day's closing value of 60.45 a dollar.

The dollar softened a bit yesterday as traders focused on riskier currencies, while the battered euro continued to drift down amid speculation that the European Central Bank will resort to quantitative easing.

Mohan Shenoy of Kotak Mahindra Bank said, "As long as US economic data is mixed, currency markets will not expect US Fed to raise interest rates. Consequently, dollar strength against major global and EM currencies will only be gradual."

"In the absence of any fresh triggers rupee is expected to trade in a narrow range of 60.35-60.60/dollar today," he said.

Global markets remained unchanged after the record breaking rally. The S&P 500 held on to its 2000-mark and in Europe, the bigger story continues to unfold in the bond markets with the German 10-year yields down to a record low on hopes of quantitative easing by the ECB. Asian markets traded mixed due to lack of trigger.