Indian stock markets extend gains

Thu, 26 Sep 11:30 am

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After a firm opening, the Indian stock markets have extended gains in the last two hours of trade. The sectoral indices are trading mixed today. Capital goods and Healthcare are amongst the leading gainers; while Oil and Gas and Realty indices are trading at the bottom.

The BSE-Sensex is up 83 points while the NSE-Nifty is trading up 25 points. The BSE Mid Cap and BSE Small Cap indices are trading up by 0.14% and 0.53% respectively. The Rupee is trading at 62.2 to the US Dollar.

Telecom stocks are trading mixed today. ITI and Idea Cellular are leading the gainers; while Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) and Reliance Communications are leading the pack of losers. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has mandated mobile service providers to implement full mobile number portability (MNP) within six months. This shall help millions of subscribers as MNP will allow them to retain their numbers if they move from one service provider to another. At present, MNP is restricted within a service/circle area (intrastate) and is not applicable if the subscribers move from one state to another. Full MNP is likely to present an opportunity to companies like Idea Cellular, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone which have benefitted from circle level MNP in the past. Implementation of full MNP is likely to increase users' available choices, improve competition and may also improve network quality. As per industry experts, companies that have a strong brand proposition, superior network quality, differentiated products and services will have an edge in this case.

Most IT stocks are trading higher today. Wipro and Infosys are among the top gainers. It is becoming increasingly clear that the flow of large contracts, in the emerging space of cloud computing, is slowly gaining momentum. Software services company HCL Technologies has announced that it has won a multi-million dollar contract from a group of American states to modernise unemployment insurance services. The multiyear deal has been signed with the WyCAN consortium, a group of US states including Arizona, Colorado, North Dakota and Wyoming. Under the terms of the contract HCL Tech will enable WyCAN to improve and modernise its unemployment insurance (UI) programme, which is one of the largest in the US providing income to millions of unemployed Americans. HCL Tech was selected through a competitive selection process where it demonstrated its managed cloud-as-a-service solution called iGOVERN.

For HCL Tech the financial services vertical registered growth of 17.5% in the quarter ended June 2013; while the growth from the North America was 12.9% in the same quarter. HCL Tech is trading down 0.2% today.