Markets continue to trade higher in the late noon trades on the back of broad-based rally across the bourses as the mood uplifted after Federal Reserve in the minutes stated that it may gradually raise interest rates in 2016 post a hike in December.
At 2:55 pm, the Sensex is up 124 points at 25,966 and the Nifty has gained 36 points to trade at 7,879. Broader markets are trading higher with BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices are up between 0.8-1%.
The energy shares emerged as the star performers with GAIL jumping 11% after Mahanagar Gas Ltd (MGL) filed draft papers with the capital markets regulator Sebi to raise funds through a public offer. GAIL and British Gas Asia each hold 49.75% in MGL. Among other energy shares ONGC and RIL have gained between 1-2%.
Shares of gas transmission companies jumped on the expectation that they may be key beneficiaries of the draft hydrocarbon policy announced earlier this week. GSPL, Petronet LNG and Indraprastha Gas soared between 2-8%.
Another stellar performance was delivered by the consumer discretionary stocks after the seventh pay commission submitted its report to Finance Minister yesterday. The recommendations include a substantial rise in salaries of central government employees and pensioners with effect from January 1, 2016 which in turn will boost sales of affordable homes and consumer durables steering demand in the economy. In the consumer related basket, Voltas, Symphony, Jubilant Foodworks, Asian Paints, BlueStar and Bata India surged between 1-5%. Meanwhile, auto stocks also spiked up with Bajaj Auto, Maruti Suzuki, M&M and Bajaj Auto gained between 2-3% amid good sales numbers during the festive season.
Meanwhile, IT stocks contributed to the rally rekindled hopes of an interest rate hike by the US Federal Reserve in the month of December is likely to result in strengthening of dollar. Infosys, TCS and Wipro climbed between 0.8-2.5%.
Among individual stocks, Dr Reddy’s Labs rebounded in trades today and is up almost 2% after witnessing a sharp fall yesterday. On Thursday, The stock hit its lowest level since February 11, 2015 on the NSE after receiving a warning letter from the US Food and Drug Administration (US FDA) over quality control issues at three of its manufacturing facilities.
Simplex Casting zoomed 20%a after it bagged orders worth Rs.54 crore from Diesel Locomotive Works (DLW), owned by Indian Railways
Other prominent gainers include Cipla, ICICI Bank, HDFC and BHEL up 1% each. On the flip side, ITC, Sun Pharma and Hindalco and Tata Motors down between 1-2%.
