New Delhi, India (BBN)-Indian benchmark share indices ended higher on Monday, shrugging off weak European cues, amid buying in index heavyweights even as auto shares emerged as the top gainers.
The 30-share Sensex ended up 161 points at 26,587 and the 50-share Nifty ended up 31 points at 8014, reports Business Standard.
The rupee was trading marginally lowe at 64.09 to the US dollar compared to its previous close of 64.06.
EXPERTS VIEWS
“The recent rise in international commodity prices has also started to reflect in the WPI index as non-food prices moved up by a strong 5.1 per cent, manufacturing items by 0.20 per cent and energy prices by 3.04 per cent over the last month. Going forward, monsoon rains would be crucial as there could be short term spikes in food inflation in the event of insufficient rainfall. Overall, WPI inflation should move into positive territory in the second half of the year once the positive base effect fades away.” says Rishi Shah, economist, Deloitte.
"Markets are seeing value buying at lower levels on the back of improved macros with encouraging April IIP numbers. Further, the contraction in WPI will eventually ease out going forward," said Prakash Diwan, Director, Altamount Capital Management.
ECONOMIC TRENDS
The wholesale price index (WPI) contracted to 2.36 per cent in May versus -2.65 per cent in the previous month on the back of dropping oil and manufacturing goods prices.
Index of Industrial Production (IIP) increased by 4.1 per cent in April, against a growth of 2.8 per cent a year ago and 2.5 per cent in March this year on the back of 5.1 per cent growth in manufacturing and 11.1 per cent expansion in capital goods. The manufacturing sector contributes 75 per cent to the index.
Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose from 4.87 per cent in April to 5.01 in May on the back a poor monsoon.
SECTORS & STOCKS
The BSE Auto index was the top gainer up 1 per cent followed by Healthcare, Oil and Gas amongo others.
Mahindra & Mahindra ended up 2.4 per cent. The auto major is set to launch a new light commercial vehicle named Jeeto by the end of this month to take on homegrown rival Tata's popular minitruck Ace Zip.
Tata Motors gained 1 per cent after reporting data on global wholesale volumes for May 2015. Tata Motors' group global wholesales, including Jaguar Land Rover, rose 2.15 per cent to Rs 79,244 units in May 2015 over May 2014. Among other stocks, Bajaj Auto and Maruti Suzuki ended up 0.7-2.3 per centeach.
ONGC rose 1.2 per cent. The Tripura unit of ONGC has introduced highly technical Hydro-fracturing (HF) job procedure to intensify exploration of natural gas for supply in different projects of the state.
Shares of Relinace Industries continue its Friday’s rally and ended up 1.2 per cent after Mukesh Ambani in the 41st AGM said that RIL will commence launch Reliance Jio in December and will cover the entire population in a span of three years. He added that Reliance has made an investment worth Rs 1 trllion last year and plans to expand his retail business.
Shares of capital goods companies gained on encouraging April IIP data. Larsen and Toubro (L&T), Siemens, Alstom T&D ended up between 1-2 per cent on the BSE.
Vedanta on Sunday said it would merge its subsidiary Cairn India with itself for a larger natural resource play. Each Cairn India shareholder would be offered an equity share of Vedanta , besides a 7.5 per cent redeemable preference share of Rs 10 face value. Vedanta ended down 1.7 per cent while Cairn India gained 3.2 per cent.
Public-sector banks have put Rs 14,000 crore worth of non-performing assets (NPAs) up for sale, to ease some pressure exerted by stressed loans on their balance sheets. Among public sector banks, SBI, Punjab National Bank, Bank of India, Punjab & Sind Bank ended lower up to 2 per cent each.
IT shares ended with marginal gains after losses last week after US government opened an investigation against two of the Indian IT outsourcing companies for possible violations of H1-B visa rules. Infosys, Wipro and TCS ended up 0.2-0.9 per cent each.
In the broader market, the BSE Mid-cap ended down 0.2 per centand the Small-cap index gained 0.3 per cent.
Market breadth ended firm with 1,427 gainers and 1,223 losers on the BSE.
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