Indian markets close firm

Fri, 29 Nov Closing

   Previous Close   

   Pre-Open   

   09:30 am   

   11:30 am   

   01:30 pm   

The Indian equity markets continued to trade firm post the afternoon session on the back of persistent buying in the major counters. The stocks from the banking, PSU and Realty sector witnessed strong buying activity today. The broader indices today traded in green with BSE Mid Cap and BSE Small Cap indices stood higher by 0.8% each. The BSE-Sensex closed higher by 257 points and the NSE-Nifty was seen up by 84 points.

On the global front, most of the Asian indices closed the day on a positive note and the European indices too opened on optimistic note. The rupee was trading at Rs 62.53 to the dollar at the time of writing.

Except Indian Overseas Bank, all the PSU-bank stocks were in favor today and closed the day on a positive note. Stocks of Syndicate bank and Bank of Baroda were amongst the leading gainers.

A leading news daily states that the lenders are expected to benefit highly with the Committee on economic Affairs clearing the bailout plan of state electricity boards (SEBs) of Jharkhand, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh. These boards have been facing acute financial difficulties. The proposal will allow these SEBs to convert their outstanding loans till March 2013 into bonds as part of an amendment to the discom debt restructuring package. After 2-3 years, these bonds will be converted in special securities and the payments to the banks will be insured as ensured by the Reserve Bank of India. The availability of state government guarantee will come as a big comfort to the lenders. Moreover, while the 50% of the debt burden will be shared by the lenders, the remaining 50% will be taken over by the government. This comes as a relief to few lenders such as Oriental Bank (OBC) and others with exposure to these SEBs. Also this comes as a welcoming move post the recent restructuring of Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh SEBs.

Except few such as Manugraph India, Voltamp Transformers and Thremax Ltd, most of the Engineering stocks ended the day today on a positive note with KSB Pumps and Finolex Cables being the leading gainers.

According to a leading news daily, L&T Technology Services, a strategic business unit of Larsen & Toubro has signed a global master agreement with Bayer Technology Services in Leverkusen, Germany. The agreement pertains to supporting efficient implementation of worldwide capital expenditure projects within the Bayer Group. This collaboration is in the light of effective implementation of worldwide capital expenditure projects within the Bayer Group. With this L&T is all set to provide dedicated services to Bayer Group with the help of Bayer engineering systems, tools and methods. This would bring about engineering solutions on the basis of BTS strategy benefitting Bayer Group in a big way.

1HFY14 has witnessed considerable improvement in earnings performance of L&T amidst the uncertainties in the infrastructure, industrial and power segments. However, management is cautiously optimistic about near to medium growth; while it continues to maintain its guidance of 15% YoY growth in sales and 20% YoY growth in order inflows. L&T stock closed higher by 2% today.