23rd April, 2013 : Market cautious ahead of expiry

iiflAfter rallying for five straight trading sessions, the markets took a breather on Tuesday. After opening on a flat note, the markets remained under pressure throughout the day. However, a sudden bout of buying in the last hour of trade lifted the benchmark indices from the day’s lows. But it was barely sufficient for the markets to end on a positive note.

The late upswing was led by the pharma, IT, oil and gas and select telecom stocks. Capital goods, consumer durables, realty and banking stocks witnessed some profit booking.

Among the broader indices, the Mid-Cap index flat with a negative bias while the Small-Cap index ended with smart gains.

In earnings today, HDFC Bank’ reported a Q4 profit after tax of Rs18.9bn on net NPAs of 0.2%. On a consolidated basis, FY13 profit came in at Rs68696.4mn as compared to Rs.52470.20mn in the same period last year. Total income increased to Rs 429939.90 mn from Rs 341857.20 mn YoY.

Commenting on the HDFC Bank’s stellar performance, Amar Ambani, Head of Research, IIFL, said, “The bank has delivered another quarter of stellar performance. We expect this robust performance to continue going forward.”

The Sensex ended at 19179, up 10 points over Monday’s close while the Nifty shut shop at 5,837, up three points.

RIL, Wipro, TCS, Infosys, HDFC, ICICI Bank, Tata Steel, NTPC, Sun Pharma, Bajaj Auto and Dr Reddy’s Labs were the gainers in trade today while the losing pack was led by Tata Power, L&T, Bharti Airtel, SBI, Gail India, Sterlite, Tata Motors, Coal India, ONGC, Jindal Steel and M&M.

The advance-decline ratio favoured the bears with 1227 stocks declining for every 1134 advances on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

Volatility as measured by India VIX ended down 7% at 15.07.

Stocks in News

ABB shares ended higher by 2% after the company acquired US-based Power-One.

UltraTech Cement ended 0.3% lower post its Q4 FY13 earnings. Q4 net profit stood at Rs 7262mn as compared to Rs 8673.2mn YoY.

The Mindtree scrip declined 2.6% post its Q4 FY13 earnings. The company reported a Q4 net profit of Rs 78.9 crore down from Rs 98.8 crore in the December quarter. It reported a 20.1% QoQ decline in net profit due to a foreign exchange loss of Rs 15.3 crore.