TCS fires markets to new all time highs

18 July 2005

Continuing from Friday's strong close, markets opened the day with a huge positive gap and were never really threatened for the rest of the day. Except for ONGC and Reliance Industries, most other major frontline stocks closed the day with very good gains.

The day belonged to TCS, which excited the markets with a strong performance for the first quarter ended June '05. The strong gains in TCS led to a rally in other frontline tech stocks like Infosys, Satyam and Wipro.

The indices surged to their day's highs in late afternoon trades on short covering. Tata Steel, Hindustan Lever, Hero Honda and Bajaj Auto were among the other stocks supporting the market surge.

Sensex closed at 7347, a gain of 76 points, and the Nifty at 2234, a gain of 21 points. Nifty July futures discount to the spot index narrowed to just 1 point from Friday's 5 points.

TCS, Hero Honda and Tata Tea were among the major gainers among Nifty stocks while ITC, ONGC and VSNL were the major losers.

After the disappointment of last quarter, TCS impressed the markets by meeting earnings forecasts for the first quarter ended June '05. Profits were higher by over 33 per cent on revenue growth of close to 25 per cent. The stock closed close to 6 per cent higher.