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Equities snub Asian weakness; HDFC twins, TCS gain

18 Jan 10 07:36 PM
ET
MUMBAI: Equity benchmarks settled with modest gains Monday after a gradual upmove gave way to profit booking towards the fag end of the session. The financial sector was in the limelight even as banking stocks across global markets sulked in reaction to JP Morgan’s dismal quarterly performance. Metal counters, however, remained under pressure as international commodity prices lost steam. A lot of stock-specific action was witnessed given the ongoing earnings season.

HDFC Bank rose more than 5 per cent as brokerages gave a thumbs up to the bank's third-quarter results announced on Friday. Morgan Stanley upgraded the bank to ‘overweight’ from ‘equal’, referring to the pace of decline in credit costs and the improvement in its earnings quality. HDFC Bank reported a 32 per cent rise in quarterly profit on the back of robust loan growth. Shares of the company ended at Rs 1768, up 4.36 per cent or Rs 73.85 on the NSE.

Meanwhile, Tata Consultancy Services rose to a record high of Rs 829 as brokerages upgraded the stock after the technology major’s quarterly earnings beat analyst estimates. Shares of the company settled at Rs 800.60, higher by 1.16 per cent.

Jaiprakash Associates Ltd posted standalone net profit of Rs. 103.02 crore for the quarter ended Dec 31, 2009, sharply down from Rs. 870.19 crore for the quarter ended Sep 30, 2009. The company said the latest quarter profit was after a one-time expense of Rs 212 crore towards employee compensation. The stock closed at 163.05, down 0.52 per cent on the NSE.

GAIL’s December quarter net profit more than tripled to Rs 860 crore from Rs 254 crore a year earlier. Shares of the company closed at Rs 442.95, up 4.1 per cent on the NSE.

"The market will continue to consolidate and remain sideways in the absence of any fresh triggers . Nifty continues to remain above its 5 and 20 day moving average of 5,244 and 5,172 respectively and breadth continues to remain positive, hence we believe that markets will not drift lower very sharply. On the higher side, 5,300 is the important point to be breached and sustained for a major uptrend to emerge. A strong support for Nifty is 5,230 and 5,160, unless this point is breached we do not see major sell-off happening,” said Nirmal Bang Securities.

National Stock Exchange’s Nifty settled at 5274.85, up 0.43 per cent or 22.65 points. The index rose to a high of 5292.50 from a low of 5228.95.

Bombay Stock Exchange’s Sensex was at 17,641.08, higher by 86.78 points or 0.49 per cent. The index touched a high of 17,712.60 and low of 17,505.50 in trade so far.

BSE Midcap Index was up 0.57 per cent and BSE Smallcap Index climbed 0.63 per cent.

Sectorally, the BSE Bankex climbed 2.41 per cent followed by BSE PSU Index up 1.91 per cent and BSE Auto Index up 1.7 per cent. Meanwhile, BSE Oil & Gas Index lost 0.36 per cent and BSE Metal Index fell 0.32 per cent.

Major Nifty gainers were HDFC Bank (4.36%), Hero Honda (4.22%), GAIL (4.1%), Axis Bank (3.27%), ICICI Bank (2.43%) and HCL Technologies (1.87%).

Grasim Industries (-2.15%), Ambuja Cements (-2.08%), Jindal Steel (-1.75%), Cairn (-1.46%) and SAIL (-1.07%) were the laggards.