Markets that wore a lacklustre look for most part of the week sprang to life today in the wake of US Fed Chairman's latest comments. With the possibility of the quantitative easing continuing for an extended period of time, investors bought into stocks in the hope that new wave of liquidity coming in from west will boost stock prices. Consequently, the BSE Sensex edged higher by a strong 382 points while the NSE-Nifty logged in gains of around 118 points. BSE Mid Cap as well as BSE Small Cap indices turned out to be a bit of a laggards, edging higher by 0.7% each. Metals and banking stocks emerged as the highest gainers.
As far as other Asian indices are concerned, all of them closed the day in the green with the European indices too trading in the positive. The rupee was placed at Rs 59.8 to the dollar at the time of writing.
Aluminium major Hindalco traded with a lot of traction on the bourses today, edging higher by more than 4%. Beside the overall positive sentiment, the stock also received a boost on the back of news that Novelis, its international subsidiary, has reportedly raised the price of all automotive aluminium sheet products sold in Europe by around 160 Euros per metric tonne, with immediate effect. This is the second such move as earlier in June, the company increased the prices of painted aluminium sheet products in Europe by 100 euros per tonne. The move is likely to boost profitability of the consolidated entity at a time when LME metal prices remain subdued.
MOIL, India's largest manganese ore miner also edged higher by close to 5% today. This was on the back of news that the company has been granted prospecting licence over an area of 597 hectares in the district of Nagpur and Bhandara in the state of Maharashtra. As of now, existing leasehold area of the company in Maharashtra is spread over an area of 696 hectares and with this new allotment the total area shall be 1293 hectares, an increase of 86%. It should be noted that the company had already earmarked a sum of Rs 2.5 bn in anticipation of the grant and to be spent towards conducting geophysical studies, exploratory drilling etc.
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