Andrew L Dcunha
Mumbai, Oct 12: Sensex rallied 422 points on the back of sustained buying activity in technology, banks and realty space. The market cheered in-line results of IT bellwether Infosys Technologies. IT major Infosys rose about 6..83 percent after it said its financial year 2011-12 earnings per share would be in the range of Rs 143.02-145.26 led by rupee depreciation, which was a significant improvement from its earlier EPS guidance of Rs 128.20-130.08.. The company's net profit rose to Rs 1,906 crore for the quarter ended September 30, 2011 against Rs 1,737 crore in the same quarter previous year. Revenue rose 16.6 % to Rs 80.99 billion, as the firm added 45 clients.
Other IT bluechip firms, Wipro and TCS, too climbed on hopes of similar results. The BSE IT Index closed up over 5% as Infosys gained 7%. TCS and HCL Tech jumped 4% each. Wipro rose 2.5. The BSE Sensex closed up 2.55 percent, or 421.92 points, at 16,958.39 points, its highest close since Sept. 21. The Nifty gained 2.51 percent to 5,099.40 points . SBI also gained over 6% on short covering. Reliance Industries, ITC, ICICI Bank, BHEL, HDFC Bank and L&T gained 2-3.4%. Shares in financials such as ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank , which closed up 3.27 % and 2.11% respectively. The stocks which failed to attract traders and ended negative were Coal India (2.53%), Tata Power (1.41%), BPCL (0.96%), Bharti Airtel (0.76%) and Ranbaxy (0.45%).
On the macro front, Index of industrial production for the month of August came in at 4.1% as against 3.3% in previous month due to contraction in manufacturing, mining and electricity. However IIP poor show failed to dent the investors and traders positive mood today.
Asian markets finished off lows Wednesday, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 1% after dropping more than 3% at the open, while the Shanghai Composite index surged 3% and South Korea’s Kospi rose 0.8%. However, Japan’s Nikkei closed with a 0.4% loss.
Active Jewellers and consumers pushed the gold prices to the highest level in nearly three weeks The most-active gold for December delivery on the Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX) was 0.89% higher at Rs 26,900 per 10 grams.
Andrew L D Cunha, Managing Director, WinWin Fin Advisory Pvt. Ltd. Mangalore. Email: finadvisoryltd@yahoo.com
