Mahurat trading: Nifty breaches 8000, Sensex firm on Diwali

The market starts auspicious Mahurat trading session with smart gains. It also marks the beginning of Samavat 2071. The Nifty opened at 8029 up 21 points while the Sensex is up 68.91 points at 26856.14.

7:20 pm Bond: SBI Mutual Fund said it has launched an inflation indexed bond fund (IIBF) offering which is aimed at investors with low to medium risk profile looking at a hedge against price rise.

Under the open-ended debt scheme, SBI Mutual Fund will invest in inflation indexed securities and actively manage a portfolio of predominantly inflation linked bonds (IIBs), it said in a statement.

"The real return is low or negative in case of alternate avenues like Fixed Deposit investments, and also for representative debt indices. Inflation Indexed Bonds (IIB)would always provide a fixed real return, irrespective of the level," SBI MF's managing director and chief executive D K Khara said.

The IIBF would invest a minimum of 70 percent and up to 100 percent in Inflation Indexed Securities, and up to 30 percent in money market instruments/units of debt and liquid mutual funds, it said.

7:10 pm Gold price: Gold prices fell by Rs 50 to Rs 27,800 per ten grams in special Diwali trading in the national capital today largely in tandem with a weakening global trend. Silver also dropped by Rs 665 to Rs 38,235 per kg on reduced offtake by industrial units.

Traders attributed the fall in prices to a weakening global trend as signs of economic growth in China and Europe curbed the demand for the precious metals. They said, however, token buying activity on the Auspicious occasion of Diwali and to mark the beginning of Hindu Samvat Year 2071 restricted the fall.

Gold of 99.9 and 99.5 percent purity declined by Rs 50 each to Rs 27,800 and Rs 27,600 per ten grams respectively, while sovereign held steady at Rs 24,300 per piece of eight gram. Globally, gold prices, which determine rates on the domestic markets, were down 0.20 percent at USD 1,239.16 an ounce in London.

7:00 pm FII view: Despite the recent volatility in international markets on the backdrop of global growth concerns, Gunit Chadha, Co-Chief Executive Officer - Asia Pacific, Deutsche Bank, expects the global growth to move from 3.3 percent this year to 3.9 percent in 2015.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, which continue to remain cautious on global growth, have recently revised their projections downwards.

In an exclusive interaction with CNBC-TV18's Shireen Bhan, Chadha said that he expects seven out of 10 big nations to grow faster in 2015 relative to 2014. He thinks US will be the biggest driver of that growth and sees India to be a big contributor, growing from 5.50 percent to 6.50 percent into next year. However, he expects Europe to struggle, growing at about 1 percent in to 2015.

6:50 pm Buzzing: Shares of Wipro slipped 5 percent intraday in the special Mahurat trading to mark beginning of Samavat 2071. The Software services firm's second quarter (July-September) net profit declined nearly 1 percent sequentially (up 8 percent year-on-year) to Rs 2,098.3 crore dented by higher tax and finance expenses, and reconciling items. Profit in the previous quarter was Rs 2,118 crore.

IT services revenue in rupee terms grew by 4 percent quarter-on-quarter (up 8.5 percent on yearly basis) to Rs 10,923 crore during the quarter. IT services revenue (non-GAAP constant currency) in dollar terms climbed 1.8 percent sequentially (up 8.6 percent year-on-year) to USD 1,771.5 million, which was within the company's guidance range of USD 1,770 million to USD 1,810 million but lower than estimates of USD 1,783 million (according to the average of estimates of analysts polled by CNBC-TV18).

Wipro underperformed its peers in dollar revenue growth. TCS had reported 6.4 percent, Infosys 3.19 percent and HCL Technologies 1.9 percent growth in dollar revenue on sequential basis.

6:40 pm Udayan Mukherhjee says: This Diwali is a good time for reflection and to sit back and take stock for a lot of people who have missed out and not participated yet. I believe there is a very large population of investors who were there in 2007 who have still not summoned up the courage to enter the equity markets. This correction that is happening right now is a good point for them to reflect on whether they should be upping their weightage on equities as an asset class once again. Some people have already done it but whether more should join the bandwagon right now and ride the wave to the next Diwali is a very important discussion point.

We are probably passing through a few dark moments out here where conviction will get tested but the next five or six Diwalis could be, if not like 2003 – 2007, probably a very good time for investing and making money from the stock market. That is my expectation I keep my fingers crossed and I hope people participate and make a lot of money over the next five years for themselves.

The market starts auspicious Mahurat trading session with smart gains. It also marks the beginning of Samavat 2071. The Nifty opened at 8029 up 21 points while the Sensex is up 68.91 points at 26856.14.

ONGC, Bajaj Auto, Reliance, Hindalco, L&T are top gainers while Wipro, BHEL, Maruti, Tata Motors and Sesa Sterlite are major laggards in the Sensex.

US stocks erased earlier gains to close lower on Wednesday as a shooting at the Canadian parliament unnerved investors, Boeing and Biogen sold off following results, and energy stocks fell along with oil prices.

Indexes had traded in positive territory for much of the session, putting the S&P 500 on track for a fifth straight day of gains. Earnings initially drove the move higher, with technology and material shares up on the back of strong results.

Market benchmarks began drifting lower after the government reported a surprise increase in crude oil inventories. Energy shares were off 1.7 percent as crude oil CLc1 fell, settling near USD 80 per barrel.

Asian shares sagged on Thursday after a retreat on Wall Street and falling crude oil prices revived investor concerns over slowing global growth, as markets nervously waited for Chinese and European manufacturing reports later in the day.

Japan's Nikkei share average fell 0.8 percent while MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan dropped 0.27 percent.