Sensex, Nifty continue to gain; sugar stocks up on CCEA nod

Moneycontrol Bureau

11:45 am Breaking: Sugar stocks rallied 5-15 percent intraday Wednesday on getting interest free loan from the government. Bajaj Hindusthan , Balrampur Chini , Mawana Sugars etc rallied more than 11 percent today. Cabinet committee on economic affairs (CCEA) has approved interest free loan worth Rs 6,000 crore to the sugar sector. Additionally, CNBC Awaaz reports quoting unnamed sources said that Maharashtra government may also give Rs 2,000 crore interest free loan for 5 years to farmers. Current cane arrears stand about Rs 20,000 crore, sources added.

11:30 am Buzzing: Shares of Bharti Airtel jumped over 2 percent intraday. CLSA maintains high conviction buy rating on the stock with a target price of Rs 480 per share. It states that Bharti‘s higher market share, profitability and superior spectrum/utilisation add upsides to forecasts of 17 percent India Ebitda, 18 percent consolidated earnings CAGR by FY18.

CLSA believes Bharti's superior margins in the mobile business are driven by operating leverage given its wider market-share and lower network operating costs driven by a higher share of 900MHz spectrum enabling Bharti have 10 percent higher subscribers/cell site versus Vodafone.

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The market is still holding up its early gains. The Sensex is up 253.64 points or 0.9 percent at 26734.89, and the Nifty is up 72.60 points or 0.9 percent at 8095.00. About 1518 shares have advanced, 533 shares declined, and 117 shares are unchanged.

BHEL, L&T, Reliance, Bharti Airtel and ICICI Bank are top gainers in the Sensex. Among the losers are Vedanta, ITC, HUL and Infosys.

Meanwhile, Oil futures extended gains in Asian trade as US crude and gasoline inventories fell more than expected and the Energy Information Administration (EIA) raised its 2015 oil demand growth forecast. The gains came after prices for crude oil, gasoline and diesel jumped more than 3 percent on Tuesday as bullish investors made bets across the oil complex for another weekly drop in US stockpiles.