Sensex up 247 points, Nifty holds 11,300; IT, metals advance
Some brisk buying in industry heavyweights such as Infosys, HDFC, ICICI Bank, Hindustan Unilever (HUL), and Bharti Airtel helped benchmark indices settle with decent gains on Friday. Additionally, positive global cues, too, boosted investor sentiment.
The S&P BSE Sensex added 247 points or 0.65 per cent to end at 38,127.08 levels, with Infosys (up 4 per cent) being the top gainer and YES Bank (down over 3 per cent) the biggest loser. During the session, the index hit a high and low of 38,345.41 and 37,737.85, respectively.
In the broader market, the S&P BSE MidCap index ended at 13,780.99 levels, up 33 points or 0.24 per cent and the S&P BSE SmallCap gained 49 points or 0.38 per cent to close at 12,772.07.
On the NSE, the headline index Nifty50 ended at 11,301.25 levels, up 67 points or 0.59 per cent.
Sectorally, barring media and private bank, all the indices on the NSE ended in the green. The Nifty Metal index ended at 2,335.20 levels, up 2.27 per cent.
Shares of Cipla gained 5 per cent to Rs 442, thus bouncing back 13 per cent from its early morning low on the BSE on Friday as, according to analysts, the USFDA’s inspection of Goa facility found no repeat or data integrity (DI) observations, so there is no chance of import alerts at the plant.
Shares of IRB Infra extended losses to the fourth day as they slipped 13% to hit over a 6-year low. In the past two months, IRB Infra has underperformed the market by falling 42 per cent after the company informed the stock exchange that Mhaiskar Infrastructure – wholly-owned subsidiary of the company, had successfully completed concession period of Mumbai Pune project on August 10, 2019.
Shares of IndusInd Bank hit a 33-month low on lower-than-expected Q2 loan growth. Its advances grew a mere 21 per cent, slowest in over 20 quarters, against expectation 25-30 per cent, on account of conservatism and macro slowdown. The asset quality of the bank worsened sequentially as well as annually. In percentage terms, consolidated gross non-performing assets (GNPAs) was at 2.19 per cent, against 2.15 per cent in Q1FY20 and 1.09 per cent in Q2FY19. Net NPA however, improved sequentially at 1.12 per cent from 1.23 per cent in the previous quarter.
Shares of Bandhan Bank zoomed 20 per cent to trade at Rs 608.3 per share on the BSE on Friday on reports that the private lender would be included in the MSCI Global Standard index with effect from October 16.
The board of Indiabulls Real Estate approved a share buyback worth Rs 500 cr of upto 5 crore fully paid-up Equity Shares having face value Rs. 2/- each of the Company, representing approx. 11% of its total existing paid-up equity capital at Rs. 100/- per Equity Share.
Shares of Infosys were up 4 per cent at Rs 813 on the BSE in the intra-day deals on Friday ahead of July-September quarter (Q2FY20) results announcement due later in the day. In the past three months, post June quarter (Q1FY20) results, Infosys has outperformed the market by surging 13 per cent, after the company had raised its FY20 revenue guidance from 7.5-9.5 per cent to 8.5-10 per cent in constant currency (CC) terms. In comparison, the S&P BSE Sensex lost 1.4 per cent during the same period.
Shares of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) hit an over seven-month low of Rs 1,929, down 4 per cent on the BSE in early morning trade on Friday after the IT major on Thursday reported weaker-than-expected numbers for the quarter ended September 30 (Q2FY20). The stock was trading at its lowest level since February 25, 2019.
Here are some picks from the week gone by.
