Infosys outlook, global cues lift Sensex 422 pts at close

Strong start to the second quarter earnings season by Infosys, along with heavy buying sectors like banking, oil & gas and capital goods, saw the Sensex register a powerful rally of over 400 points. The rally was also significant as it was on the backdrop of a weak industrial output data. The buoyancy in global markets too supported our market in last one hour of trade.

The 30-share BSE Sensex soared 421.92 points or 2.55%, to close at 16,958.39, led by gains in 27 stocks. The 50-share NSE Nifty rallied 125.05 points or 2.51%, to end at 5,099.40, after hitting an intra-day high of 5,109.80.

According to portfolio manager PN Vijay, market are seeing a risk reversal trade in the last 10 days. "If you see the Europe, especially the DAX, it has gone up some 18% and India has hardly gone up 5-7% in the last 10 trading sessions. It means that people are feeling comfortable that atleast for now that Greece (debt issue) has been sorted out."

Back home, the star of the day was Infosys after the IT major said its financial year 2011-12 earnings per share would be in the range of Rs 143.02-145.26 led by rupee depreciation, which was a significant improvement from its earlier EPS guidance of Rs 128.20-130.08.

Calling it a 'strong buy' post strong results, Sandip Agarwal, IT analyst with Antique Stock Broking says the company has done extremely well for bringing the improvement in the utilization numbers.

Keeping aside the EPS guidance upgrade, which he says will see an upgradation due to the currency factor, Agarwal says the execution side is a big kick. "Overall, the Infosys results are a good set of number on the operating matrix side and the execution side," he says, adding that the stock remains the top pick followed by rival TCS.