Sensex ends above 17K on global cues; RIL, BHEL lead

Equity benchmarks closed above their important psychological levels for the first time this week; the Sensex stayed above 17,000 mark and Nifty above 5100. Positive global cues and buying in heavyweights like Reliance Industries, BHEL, ICICI Bank, HDFC, TCS, HDFC Bank and SBI helped the markets.

Mukesh Ambani group's flagship company Reliance Industries (RIL) has made entry into telecom sector by buying 95% stake in Infotel Broadband and making it a subsidiary. It would invest Rs 4,800 crore in fresh equity capital and is expected to pay BWA spectrum fee & infuse funds for the rollout. Infotel has won Pan-India broadband spectrum auction (BWA0 license and has over 5 lakh subscribers.

Anant Nahata, Promoter Director of Infotel said, the company had been in talks with RIL since the start of the BWA auction. "We realised that we needed a strategic partner once auction prices went up," he added.

Another news was that RIL announced its sixth oil discovery in exploratory block CB-ONN-2003/1 (CB 10 A&B), awarded under the NELP-V round of exploration bidding. The well CB10A-T1 flowed at a rate of 425 barrels of oil per day through a 6-mm bean with a flowing tubing head pressure of 290 psi. RIL as operator holds 100% participating interest in the block. The shares gained 3% at Rs 1,046.40.

The country's industrial output rose for the seventh consecutive month in April at a much faster than expected rate of 17.6% from 13.5% a month earlier led by growth across all sectors. CNBC-TV18 had expected IIP to come in at 14%.

The manufacturing sector in April grew 19.4% as against 0.4%, while consumer durables surged to 37% versus 17.6%. The mining sector's growth came in at 11.4% in the month versus 3.4%. There was strong growth in capital goods sector, which rose 72.8% from negative 5.9% on year-on-year basis and the consolidated non-durable jumped 6.6% as against negative 10.5%.