Sensex Hovers Near 18000 Mark

The Indian markets have opened positive for the third consecutive day of this week. The BSE Sensex opened 189 points up, while Nifty opened 61 points up. The subsequent trends have been volatile, but the markets have continued trading positive. Both the benchmark indices are up over 0.8% at this hour.

The other Asian markets are trading firmly in the positives at the moment. The Hang Seng and Nikkei have rallied by over 1.3% each, while Shanghai is also up by 0.74%.

Earlier, the US and European markets ended sharply higher on the positive sentiment created by news on the positive growth of the US economy and the recovery of the banking sector. The US retail sales recorded strong growth, while most banks passed the Federal Reserve’s stress test. Fitch has also upgraded the credit rating of Greece to B Minus with a stable outlook.

Of the sectoral indices CG, Auto, HC and Bankex all are up by over 1%. Realty is the only sector seen under pressure and in the negatives.

Among the Sensex stocks, M&M is up by 2.98% after two days of losses. ICICI Bank, Tata Motors, L&T and Sterlite Industries have all gained over 2%. Coal India is up 1.90%. Other Auto stocks such as Maruti Suzuki, Hero MotoCorp and Bajaj Auto are also trading up. However, TCS, Wipro and HDFC are in the negative zone.

In other stocks, Apollo Hospitals has surged by 7.62%. The shares of Financial Tech are up by 5.32% and MOIL is also up 5.29%. United Breweries and Manappuram Finance, which were up for the last two days, are trading down today on profit booking.

The market breadth, which indicates the overall health of the market, is positive. Out of a total of 2311 stocks, 1506 stocks advanced and 697 stocks declined. 108 stocks remained unchanged.

The key events that will unfold today are the announcement of the inflation data and the Railway Budget. The markets will take cues from these events.