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After recovering from the shock of a lacklustre show by Infosys Technologies last week, the markets picked pace on Tuesday and made a smart recovery, in what was a curtailed week. BSE Sensex gained 1.1 per cent and the S&P CNX Nifty index 1 per cent over the week.
Strong monsoon prospects and revived growth in exports aided the market, even as rising food inflation numbers and less-than expected earnings growth by companies tried playing spoilsport. Forecasts of good monsoon aided consumer stocks such as Hindustan Unilever (4.7 per cent) and Mahindra & Mahindra (5.8 per cent), thanks to their strong rural focus.
BSE Auto and BSE Oil & Gas were among the top gaining indices, while BSE Realty, BSE Capital Goods and BSE Auto declined. BSE Realty and BSE Capital Goods indices corrected due to the sharp fall in their index heavy weights — Unitech and BHEL respectively.
BHEL lost 7.7 per cent in a week with a 4.4 per cent decline on the day the French major Alstom announced a joint venture with Shanghai Electric to supply boilers for power projects. The venture would require the French player's local unit — Alstom Projects India — to hive off its boiler business. The market appears to have viewed this as a negative for BHEL as this venture would add one more competitor locally.
Unitech lost 6.4 per cent over the week after its Managing Director was arrested over the company receiving favours as part of the 2G scam. DB Realty and Reliance Communications lost 4.4 per cent and 1 per cent respectively after similar allegations.
ONGC was the top gainer among the BSE Sensex stocks with return of 6.6 per cent in a week. There were some reports that the company may buy stake in OAO Bashneft , an oil producer.
Power Finance Company lost 9.5 per cent after reporting a sharp fall in profit growth for the March quarter. Rising interest costs have taken a toll on the company's financials. Container Corporation (decline of 8.6 per cent ), CMC (5.91 per cent fall) are the other companies that fell following their result announcement.
On the other hand, Zee Entertainment (6.7 per cent), Hindustan Zinc (6.1 per cent) and HCL Technologies (7.53 per cent) were given a thumbs-up post better than market-expected earnings.
SBI gained 2 per cent over a week after it announced hiking of its base rate (lending rate) by 0.25 per cent. It also discontinued the teaser rate loan product in the housing segment.
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