February 15: mid-session report

The Indian markets witnessed a strong rally after a turmoil last week as it gained more than 2.5 per cent in trades. Benchmark indices opened in green and surged as the day progressed. The buying came in from metals and PSU banking as fears over Chinese Central Bank allayed some fears over depreciating Yuan. Tata Steel was the star performer and led the entire metal index.

Nifty was trading up by more than 175 points at 7157; and the Sensex by 550 points at 23533. Both the leading indicators were trading up with gains of 2.53 and 2.38 per cent respectively.

The advance-decline ratio showed the same trend as most of the stocks traded in green. 1921 scrips were trading in the positive territory, 485 scrips were in red, however 94 stocks remained unchanged on the NSE.

Top Nifty Gainers: Bank of Baroda is leading the gainers list as it was trading up by close to 24 per cent followed by Vedanta, Tata Steel, Hindalco and L&T which were up 14.62, 11.24, 9.93 and 8.28 per cent respectively.

Top Nifty Losers: Bharti is leading the losers list down more than 2.05 per cent, followed by Idea Cellular and Hindustan Unilever which are down anywhere between 1.5 per cent to 1.2 per cent.

All the major sectors were trading in green. BSE Metal Index was leading the way with gains of 8 per cent. Followed by BSE Capital Goods and BSE Oil & Gas, which were trading up by 6.65 and 4.15 per cent respectively. BSE Small-Caps witnessed heavy buying as they were trading up 3.54 per cent. BSE Mid -Cap index too was trading in the positive territory by 3.32 per cent.

Chinese benchmark index CSI opened after a week of holidays on account of Lunar Holidays. Chinese CSI 3000 Index was trading down by 0.17 per cent. Japanese Nikkei surged more than 7 per cent in trades owing to news regarding the government planned stimulus for the economy. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was up more than 3 per cent in late trade. Korean Topix was also up by 8.57 per cent.

In commodities, Oil prices displayed consolidated gains after surging as much as 12 percent on Friday, after a report that once again suggested OPEC might finally agree to cut production to reduce the world glut.

Buzzer: - Bank of Baroda was buzzing in trade as it was trading up by 24 per cent to Rs 140 owing to positive commentary made by the banks management.

Asian shares snapped a five-session losing streak on Monday as China's Central Bank fixed the Yuan sharply stronger, easing fears of depreciation for now, though a string of weak data reports from Japan, China and Indonesia suggested the bounce may be short-lived. European markets are set to follow Asian peers by opening in green.

Second half seems to remain in the positive territory as market is trading with strong gains. Support is expected from European peers.