Sensex ends 200 points higher, Nifty closes above 10,600; PSU banks fall

The Sensex is up 212.33 points or 0.62% at 34713.60, and the Nifty up 47.30 points or 0.45% at 10617.80.

Yes Bank and HUL were the top gainers, while Dr Reddy’s Labs, Airtel, and Lupin were the top losers.

3:09 pm Market Update: Benchmark indices extended gains in late trade, with the Sensex rising 243.80 points to 34,745.07 and the Nifty climbing 53.10 points to 10,623.60 despite weak market breadth.

About three shares declined for every two shares rising on the BSE.

FMCG, IT and banks stocks pushed the market higher.

3:00 pm TCS expands operations in Texas: IT major Tata Consultancy Services has expanded its operations to Texas by welcoming more than 200 new employees to its ranks, as part of its groundbreaking agreement with Transamerica to transform the administration of its US insurance and annuity business lines.

2:54 pm Market Update: The market remained volatile amid corporate earnings and ahead of its expiry of April futures & options contracts.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was up 110.94 points at 34,612.21 and the 50-share NSE Nifty rose 11.80 points to 10,582.30.

Yes Bank was up 7 percent after healthy growth of 29 percent in profit and 31 percent in net interest income for the quarter ended March 2018.

Axis Bank was down 2 percent ahead of quarterly earnings later in the day.

2:40 pm Earnings: HIL share price gained 4 percent after its Q4 net profit jumped sharply to Rs 20.2 crore from Rs 6.5 crore and revenue grew by 22.3 percent to Rs 335.2 crore from Rs 274 crore YoY.

2:25 pm Buzzing: Tata Elxsi share price fell a percent after operating profit margin contracted 170 basis points sequentially to 25.3 percent in Q4FY18.

Net profit in Q4 increased to Rs 70.3 crore from Rs 62.8 crore QoQ as other income grew by Rs 19.6 crore from Rs 6.8 crore on sequential basis.

2:03 pm Earnings: Yes Bank's Q4 earnings beat analyst estimates, with profit growing 29 percent YoY on healthy growth in NII. Asset quality also improved sequentially.

1:52 pm IDFC's Clarification: While clarifying on a media report indicated that IDFC is in talks to sell AMC and broking units, the company said, "We keep evaluating opportunities from time to time and should anything fructify, we will inform the Exchanges a sappropriate. At this point, there is nothing that requires disclosure and we cannot and do not comment on market speculation."

1:40 pm Final Dividend: Supreme Industries informed BSE that the board of directors has approved a final dividend at 450 percent i.e. Rs 9 per share of Rs 2 each (face value) on 12,70,26,870 number of equity shares for the financial year ended March 31, 2018.

1:30 pm Company Name Change: Russian oil major Rosneft-owned Essar Oil plans to change its corporate identity to Nayara Energy Ltd, the company said.

Rosneft and its partners completed the USD 12.9-billion acquisition of Essar Oil last August to enter the world's fastest-growing energy market.

"Essar Oil Ltd (EOL) is seeking approval to change its corporate identity to Nayara Energy Ltd. The new corporate identity for EOL is in line with the company's strategy to create a new brand and identity, reflecting the new ownership and its ethos," the company said in a statement.

Rosneft owns 49.13 percent of the company while global commodity trading and logistics giant, Trafigura and Russia's UCP Investment Group own another 49.13 percent, reports PTI.

1:20 pm Buzzing: Uniply Industries share price rallied more than 5 percent intraday after Malabar India Fund raises stake in the company to 8.49 percent on Wednesday.

Malabar India Fund has bought 8.35 lakh equity shares (representing 3.49 percent of total paid up equity) of the company through open market transaction on April 25.

The fund has increased its stake to 8.49 percent from 4.99 percent earlier.

1:10 pm Europe Update: European markets were mixed, as investors monitored a fresh batch of corporate earnings.

Investors around the world have been fixated on the 10-year note yield as of late, with concerns looming that hitting the 3 percent barrier could trigger a reaction from financial markets both in the US and internationally.

While the ECB is expected to hold steady on its current monetary policies, investors will be paying close attention to the press conference where President Mario Draghi is expected to deliver remarks on the current economic state of the euro zone, reports CNBC.

1:01 pm National Telecom Policy: The government is likely to release the draft of new National Telecom Policy on May 1 to seek public comments, Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan said today.

"The direction of the new policy, that we hope you will see as early as on May 1, will be reform-oriented, it will be investor friendly and bring down the cost of compliances," Sundararajan said while speaking at the Annual General Meeting of US industry body Amcham.

She mentioned that the proposed National Telecom Policy (NTP) 2018 will be placed for public comments for 15-20 days.

12:49 pm Market Update: The market continued to trade in a range of 30 points ahead of expiry of April futures and options contracts. Investors also monitor corporate earnings. Private sector lenders Yes Bank and Axis Bank are going to announce quarterly earnings later in the day.

Reliance Industries, TCS, HDFC Bank, Infosys and Tata Motors are helping the market to stay in the green whereas correction L&T, ICICI Bank Axis Bank and PSU oil & gas stocks capped gains.

The Indian rupee is off its 14-month low, trading 12 paise higher at 66.77 against the US dollar.

12:41 pm ECB Policy Meeting Later Today: The European Central Bank is set to keep policy unchanged today, playing down worries over recent softness in the euro zone economy and leaving the door open to ending its lavish bond purchase scheme by the close of the year.

Having tweaked its guidance last month to reflect solid growth, the ECB will probably argue that the economy is humming along and that the exceptional readings seen around the turn of the year were always unlikely to be sustained, economists said.

Indeed, with the 19-country bloc's economy having expanded for 20 straight quarters, the main debate among policymakers is about how to withdraw stimulus further, reports Reuters.

12:31 pm Essar Oil to invest Rs 900 cr in CBM block: Ruia family-owned Essar Oil and Gas will invest Rs 900 crore in drilling 150 more wells on its Raniganj CBM block in West Bengal to more than double gas output to 2.3 million standard cubic metres per day by 2021, its Managing Director and CEO Vilas Tawde said.

Essar Oil and Gas Exploration and Production Ltd (EOGEPL) has so far drilled 348 wells on the blocks and is producing 1 mmscmd of gas from coal seams, reports PTI.

12:20 pm Buzzing: Shares of Wipro trimmed losses to 2 percent from nearly 5 percent in afternoon.

Wipro yesterday posted over 20 per cent decline in consolidated profit to Rs 1,800.8 crore for the March quarter, 2017-18.

The software services firm had registered a profit of Rs 2,267 crore in the year-ago period, as per Indian accounting norms.

Its total income was down 4.9 percent at Rs 14,304.6 crore in the fourth quarter of last fiscal, compared to Rs 15,045.5 crore in the January-March period of 2016-17.

12:10 pm Market Update: Benchmark indices continued to consolidate ahead of expiry of April futures and options contracts. Investors also monitor corporate earnings.

Private sector lenders Yes Bank and Axis Bank are going to announce quarterly earnings later in the day.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was up 45.13 points at 34,546.40 and the 50-share NSE Nifty rose 1.40 points to 10,571.90 amid weak market breadth.

About 1,318 shares declined against 990 advancing shares on the BSE.

Reliance Industries, TCS, HDFC Bank and Tata Motors were helping the market to stay in the green, rising up to 1.4 percent whereas correction in Bharti Infratel, Wipro, L&T, Axis Bank, Bharti Airtel, ICICI Bank and PSU oil & gas capped gains.

The Indian rupee traded higher at 66.82 against the US dollar, rising 7 paise or 0.10 percent compared to previous closing of 66.89 a dollar.

12:02 pm Buzzing: Edelweiss Financial, Tata Elxsi, National Fertilizers and Take Solutions gained up to 4 percent while PC Jeweller extended fall.

11:45 am Compliance With Minimum Public Shareholding: RMG Alloy Steel said a constituent of promoters' group viz. Widescreen Holdings Private Limited made offer for sale for 12,791,980 equity shares through the stock exchange mechanism through BSE on April 17, 2018 (T) and April 18, 2018 (T+1) and has successfully offloaded entire quantity of shares offered.

Therefore, the company has now achieved minimum public shareholding at 25% in accordance with the SEBI mechanism, it added.

11:25 am India key market for PE, VC tech activity: India is one of the key markets for investors looking to capitalise on the fast-evolving tech sector as it has accounted for 56 percent of deal value of the total PE and VC tech activity in the Indian and Southeast Asian markets since 2015, says a report.

According to the report by global risk management firm Kroll, and deal tracking firm Mergermarket, since 2015, India has seen the majority of total PE and VC tech activity with 71 percent of volume.

As the next biggest market, Singapore accounted for 33 percent of deal value and 10 percent of volume, while Indonesia (7 percent of deal value and 7 percent of volume) was also on investors' radar screens, reports PTI.

11:15 am Buzzing: Shares of IDFC rose 6.5 percent intraday on a media report that the company is in talks to sell its mutual fund and broking units in a deal that could be worth up to Rs 6,000 crore.

Meanwhile, IDFC will announce its earnings for January-March quarter and financial year 2017-18 on April 27.

11:05 am Results Date: Havells India informed BSE that a meeting of board of directors of the company is scheduled to be held on May 11 to consider and approve the standalone and consolidated audited financial results for the fourth quarter and financial year ended March 31, 2018 (FY18) and to recommend dividend for the financial year ended March 31, 2018.

10:55 am Gold Update: Gold prices were little changed after falling to their lowest in five weeks in the previous session, pressured by a stronger dollar, which held near more than three-month highs, and a rise in US Treasury yields.

Spot gold was up 0.05 percent at USD 1,323.66 per ounce, after falling by as much as 0.9 percent to USD 1,318.51 in the previous session, its lowest since March 21.

US gold futures gained 0.1 percent USD 1,324.7 an ounce, reports CNBC.

10:45 am Buzzing: Shares of Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services touched a 52-week high of Rs 532, rising 4.8 percent on the back of robust Q4 numbers.

The company's Q4 (Jan-March) consolidated net profit rose 79.4 percent at Rs 513.1 crore against Rs 286 crore, in the same quarter last year.

Revenue was up 17.6 percent at Rs 2,497 crore versus Rs 2,123.1 crore.

10:37 am Market Update: The market continued to trade mildly higher amid consolidation ahead of expiry of futures & options contracts for the month of April.

The Nifty is gradually inching towards 10,600 on the day of expiry while Realty is the only major gainer among sectoral indices, rising 1.5 percent after approval to Mumbai Development Plan 2034.

Indiabulls Real Estate jumped 7 percent while Sobha, DLF, Phoenix Mills and Godrej Properties gained up to 2 percent.

10:31 am Buzzing: The share price of Shah Alloys has locked at 5 percent upper circuit as company signed settlement pact with ARCIL.

The company has entered into settlement agreement with ARCIL (Assets Reconstruction Company India) in respect of credit facilities availed by the company and the settled amount to be paid upto 31.12.2020 and 31.03.2022, company said in release.

Karur Vysya Bank and IDBI Bank had assigned their entire outstanding debts to ARCIL.

10:25 am Earnings Reaction: Future Supply Chain share price fell over a percent after its fourth quarter margin contracted 180 basis points to 14.4 percent compared to 16.2 percent in same period last year.

Revenue from operations grew by 50.4 percent year-on-year to Rs 222.4 crore and operating income 33.2 percent to Rs 31.9 crore in Q4.

Net profit grew by 3.6 percent to Rs 17.8 crore YoY.

10:15 am New Product Launch: After a hugely successful launch of Avvatar Absolute 100 percent Whey Protein, a product that was very well accepted by consumers, Parag Milk Foods, manufacturer of dairy-based branded foods in India, has now launched Avvatar Advanced Muscle Gainer, a product specially designed to support lean muscle gain with controlled fat levels.

The product is available in a rich chocolate flavour with pack sizes of 3.3 lbs, 6 lbs and 10 lbs, it said.

10:05 am Earnings Date: Lupin said board meeting will be held on May 15 to consider and take on record the audited standalone and consolidated financial results for the year ended March 31, 2018 and recommend dividend, if any.

9:59 am Oil Update: Oil prices were trading higher, with the US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures rising 0.53 percent to USD 68.41 a barrel.

Brent crude oil futures were 0.62 percent higher at USD 74.46 a barrel. The contract hit a high going back to November 2014 at USD 75.47 on Tuesday.

9:50 am Rupee Recovers: The rupee recovered from 14-month low to trade higher by 11 paise at 66.79 against the US dollar on fresh selling of the dollar by exporters and banks amidst higher opening in domestic equity market.

Forex dealers said besides selling of the American currency by exporters and banks, weakness in the dollar against other currencies overseas supported the rupee.

Further, a higher opening in the domestic equity market influenced the rupee uptrend, they added.

The rupee opened higher by 2 paise at 66.88 against the US dollar at the Interbank Foreign Exchange market.

The domestic currency had tumbled 52 paise to hit a 14-month low of 66.90 against the US dollar, the third biggest single-day fall for the domestic currency this year, amid surging crude prices coupled with headwinds on the macro-economic front in form of widening trade deficit.

9:38 am Market Update: The market traded mildly higher amid consolidation ahead of expiry of April derivative contracts today.

Wipro fell nearly 4 percent after disappointing fourth quarter earnings and Q1 IT services revenue guidance.

Axis Bank, Yes Bank, Biocon, SBI Life Insurance, Reliance Capital, AU Small Finance Bank among others will announce earnings today.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was up 61.16 points at 34,562.43 and the 50-share NSE Nifty rose 16.30 points to 10,586.80.

9:28 am Drug Approval: Zydus Cadila has received final approval from the US Food and Drug Administration to market Methylprednisolone tablets USP in the strengths of 4 mg, 8 mg, 16 mg and 32 mg.

It is used to treat conditions such as arthritis, blood disorders, severe allergic reactions, certain cancers, eye conditions, skin/kidney/intestinal/lung diseases and immune system disorders.

It will be manufactured at the group's formulations manufacturing facility at Moraiya, Ahmedabad.

The group also received the final approval to market Cinacalcet Hydrochloride Tablets, which is indicated for the treatment of high blood calcium in patients with cancer of parathyroid glands and for the treatment of high blood parathyroid hormone levels seen in patients with chronic kidney diseases on dialysis.

9:18 am Results Date: Visaka Industries informed exchange that the meeting of the board of directors is scheduled to be held on May 07 to consider and approve the audited financial results of the company for the fourth quarter / year ended March 31, 2018 and consider recommending dividend, if any for the financial year ended March 31, 2018.

9:15 am Market Update: Benchmark indices opened flat on Thursday, the expiry day for April derivative contracts.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was up 46.40 points at 34,547.67 and the 50-share NSE Nifty rose 5.40 points to 10,575.90.

Yes Bank gained half a percent and Axis Bank was down 0.75 percent ahead of earnings later in the day.

NIIT, M&M Financial, DHFL, Mindtree, Parag Milk Foods, Biocon, Rallis India and Tata Elxsi gained up to 3 percent.

ICICI Lombard, Jindal Stainless, Reliance Naval and PC Jeweller slipped up to 9 percent.

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9:03 am Stocks in news: Wipro: The Board has approved amalgamation of its two subsidiaries with the company. The company's Q4 profit was down 7 percent QoQ; sees Q1 IT services revenue at USD 2,015-2,065 million

Emami: The Board will meet on May 3 to consider results and approve dividend as well

Uniply Industries approved issue of 45.14 lakh equity shares at Rs 400.85 per shares on preferential basis to non-promoter and allotment of 96.28 lakh convertible share warrants at Rs 400.85 per warrant on preferential basis to promoter and non-promoters.

Bharti Airtel: The firm has approved sale/transfer of submarine cables to unit Network I2I

UltraTech Cement: Company's Q4 profit sheds 29%; sales volume grows 31%

Syngene International: Company's Q4 net rises 8 percent to Rs 84 crore

Reliance Capital issued NCD worth Rs 30 crore

Indiabulls Real Estate: Company's Q4 profit surges to Rs 1,648 cr

Sterlite Tech: Company's Q4 profit jumps 77 percent to Rs 112 cr

Zydus Cadila: Company gets USFDA nod to market 2 drugs

9:01 am Market Check: Benchmark indices were flat in pre-opening trade, following mixed trend Asian stocks.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was up 74.55 points at 34,575.82 and the 50-share NSE Nifty rose 8.30 points to 10,578.80.

Wall Street limped into positive territory on Wednesday on optimism over a spate of upbeat earnings that was nearly offset by jitters over rising US bond yields and corporate costs, said a Reuters report.

Asian stocks edged up on Thursday as robust corporate earnings helped Wall Street quell concerns over a surge in US bond yields, while the dollar hovered near three-month highs against a basket of currencies, it said.

Oil prices rose over concerns of supply disruptions in Venezuela and the Middle East as well as by strong demand. Brent crude oil futures were at 74.44 per barrel, up 44 cents, or 0.6 percent.