Sensex up 212 pts, Nifty below 8000 ahead of Mahurat trade

Moneycontrol Bureau

03:30 pm Market closing

The market ended pre-Diwali trading session on a strong note. Howevr, the Nifty could not scale the 8000-level even once. The 50-share index closed up 68.15 points or 0.9 percent at 7995.9 while the Sensex was up 211.58 points at 26787.23, and the Nifty. About 1796 shares advanced, 1030 shares declined, and 106 shares were unchanged.

Cipla, Hero MotoCorp, Bajaj Auto, Tata Motors and Maruti Suzuki are top gainers in the Sensex. Among the losers are ONGC, ITC, NTPC, ICICI Bank and Bhart Airtel.

02:55pm Interview

In an interview to CNBC-TV18 Prem Hinduja, MD, Tribhovandas Bhimji Zaveri (TBZ) shared about the latest happenings in the company in the wake of ongoing festive season and the way ahead.

He said that consumer sentiment has improved and the company has seen double-digit sales growth on last two auspicious occasions of Dusshera and Dhanteras. “We have seen an improvement in walk- ins and pent up demand is also helping,” he added.

TBZ aims to boost sales and is likely to focus on discounts and special offers going ahead, he said. However, margins are likely to remain under pressure on account of this.

02:30pm Kotak on buyers' radar

Kotak Mahindra Bank shares rallied 4.5 percent as the private sector lender's second quarter standalone profit after tax beat street expectations, rising 26 percent year-on-year to Rs 444.5 crore led by strong other income and lower provisions. Profit in the year-ago period was Rs 352.54 crore.

Standalone (includes only banking operations) net interest income rose by 12.4 percent, in-line, to Rs 1,039 crore in the quarter ended September 2014 compared to Rs 924.11 crore in same quarter last year.

According to the average of estimates of analysts polled by CNBC-TV18, profit was estimated at Rs 406 crore and net interest income at Rs 1,034 crore for the quarter.

Other income of the bank jumped 57 percent to Rs 466.5 crore from Rs 297 crore during the same period. Net interest margin climbed 10 basis points to 5 percent from 4.9 percent on sequential basis.

Asset quality was stable during the quarter with the standalone gross non-performing assets (NPA) at 1.89 percent as against 1.88 percent in previous quarter and 1.97 percent in the year-ago period. Net NPA stood at 1 percent compared to 0.98 percent Q-o-Q and 0.96 percent Y-o-Y.

02:00pm Market Check Equity benchmarks remained on strong footing in afternoon trade. The Sensex climbed 173.55 points to 26749.20 and the Nifty rose 59.25 points to 7987 while the BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices gained 1 percent each.

Advancing shares outnumbered declining ones by a ratio of 1620 to 1050 on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

According to Ramesh Damani, Member of BSE, the markets are currently in a firm ‘bull grip’ and he is optimistic on the trend to continue for the next few Diwalis.

Samir Arora, Founder & Fund Manager of Helios Capital too thinks the rally is big and in for a longer duration. However, he does not want to compartmentalize the expected gains on the index to 20 percent or 30 percent.

Commercial vehicle maker Tata Motors and two-wheeler maker Hero Motocorp topped the buying list, up over 3.5 percent on hopes of strong sales numbers in October. Maruti Suzuki, Bajaj Auto and Mahindra and Mahindra gained nearly 3 percent.

Reliance Industries, L&T, Dr Reddy's Labs, Cipla, Sun Pharma, Wipro and BHEL climbed 1-2 percent. However, ONGC topped the selling list, falling over 2 percent followed by ITC, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, SBI, Coal India and NTPC with marginal loss.

Global markets were mixed today. Asian markets like Japan gained more than 2.5 percent while most of European markets were trading with losses.