Nifty ends above 6000 post ICICI Bank, ITC nos; RIL, L&T lead
29 Oct 2010
The benchmark Nifty bounced back smartly in the last half an hour of trade and closed above the 6000 - an important psychological level, led by heavyweights like ICICI Bank and ITC post their strong performance in quarterly earnings. The support was also led by Reliance Industries, L&T, HDFC Bank, NTPC and HUL.
India's second largest Bank ICICI Bank reported consolidated net profit at Rs 1,395 crore in Q2FY11, a growth of 21.83% on year-on-year basis, due to fall in provisions and increased in CASA. CASA increased to 44% in Q2FY11 from 36.9% Q2FY10 and net non-performing asset (NPA) ratio declined at 1.4% versus 2.2% (YoY). Provisions declined to Rs 641 crore from Rs 1,071 crore. The stock surged 6.8% to close at Rs 1163 a share.
Manish Sonthalia of Motilal Oswal AMC sees some more headroom in stock by way of a valuation. "The NII growth has been pretty strong at 8%, which we were looking at 2%-3% sort of a growth. Asset quality has improved significantly, their provisions have come down. 44% CASA is pretty decent number and now with CASA being above 40% margins can really sustain above that. So these things are quite positive. Their life insurance subsidy has reported a profit and the full amount. So I think the stock could trade at higher valuations."
Even the Sensex ended above 20,000 mark though there was extreme volatility in trade on Friday. On the other side, selling was seen in metal, realty, select technology and private power companies' shares along with SBI, Tata Motors, Hero Honda, HDFC, PNB and Sun Pharma.
Weak global cues also weighed on markets a bit; European markets like France's CAC, Germany's DAX and Britain's FTSE were trading 0.3-0.65% lower. US index futures were down 0.3-0.5%, at the time of closing of Indian equities.
The 30-share BSE Sensex closed at 20,032.34, up 91.30 points or 0.46% and the 50-share NSE Nifty rose 30 points or 0.50% to settle at 6,017.70. The Nifty November futures' premium trimmed down to 22 points from 40 points. For the week, the Sensex fell 0.66% and Nifty lost 0.8%.