Nifty gains for 7th straight session, ends at new 2009 high

28 Aug 2009

The Nifty maintained the uptrend for the seventh consecutive session and closed at new 2009 highs of 4732.35 on the first day of September series. The rally was led by buying in shares of telecom, realty, oil & gas exploration, banking, private power and select metal companies. It crossed the earlier high of 4,731.

Equity benchmarks started the day on a mildly positive note and witnessed volatility throughout the day, as a continuation of Thursday's consolidation. But in the last one hour of trade, it gained good strength. Nearly 1-1.3% gains in European markets were also supportive. However, selling in technology stocks along with ITC, Tata Power, Sun Pharma and Ranbaxy Labs capped the gains.

The 30-share BSE Sensex shut shop at 15,922.34, up 141.27 points or 0.9%, after seeing an intraday high of 15,957.67 and low of 15,663.35. The 50-share NSE Nifty rose 0.94% or 44.15 points, to settle at 4732.35. It touched a day's high/low of 4743.75 and 4651.40, respectively. Both indices shot up 7.5-7.7% in seven sessions and ended with 4.5% gains each in this week.

Pashupathi Advani, Advani OTC Dealers said the month of September sould be okay given that we sould get some rain and hopefully enough. "One of the concerns which I had about September seems to have moved to October which is the settlement of the Reliance Case. It is now postponed to October 20th; I believe that makes September a more interesting month. It also depends on how the rains pan out because people have forgotten but people are still worried about it. And we shall keep seeing it in the press but all in all September should be okay given that we will get some rain and hopefully enough."

In the heavyweight Bharti Airtel was the star performer of the day, gained 4.4% today and 6.5% in two days ahead of the deal between the company and South Africa's MTN. The stock closed at Rs 434.8. Sources told CNBC-TV18 yesterday that the deal would be closed by Mid September. MTN in the concall said deal would provide opportunity for diversification and scale and synergy benefits. The company however refused to talk on Bharti deal but said it would return once everything was finalised. It is looking at growth opportunities and would want to explore deal with Bharti and SingTel.

Realty stocks saw huge buying interest and Realty Index outperformed other indices. It was up 3.8%. Omaxe surged 9.25%. Unitech and DLF were up 5.71% and 5.30%, respectively.

Volumes were lower compared to expiry day; total traded turnover stood at Rs 84,992.21 crore as against Rs 1,19,172.38 crore on Thursday. This included Rs 18,332.43 crore from the NSE cash segment, Rs 60,109.07 crore from the NSE F&O and the balance Rs 6,550.71 crore from the BSE cash segment.

On the global front, Asian markets ended mixed. Taiwan Weighted was up 1.8%. Nikkei, Kospi and Jakarta gained 0.5-0.9%. However, Shanghai fell 2.9% and Hang Seng down 0.71%. Straits Times was flat.