Lacklustre Sensex see GMR, Adani ride on deals

The BSE Sensex see-sawed on Friday after opening higher tracking most Asian stocks that edged up on bargain hunting, with investors awaiting domestic industrial output data for June due at 0530 GMT.

“The market has already discounted why industrial output data cannot be very good because the government is slow on policy and project execution. If the data is above expectation, there could be some knee-jerk positive reaction, but I don’t expect much impact,” said Deven Choksey, managing director of brokerage KR Choksey.

At 10:32 am (0451 GMT), the 30-share BSE index was trading nearly flat at 17,060.25 points, with half its components advancing. The index, which had lost more than 6 percent so far this month, opened up more than 1 percent on Friday.

Foreign institutional investors bought $55.07 million worth of Indian shares on Thursday after having sold close to $1.3 billion in the previous six sessions.

“I don’t think fresh buying is coming in from domestic or foreign institutions. Unless the situation improves in the U.S. or Europe, investors would want to get out at every rally,” said RK Gupta, Managing director at Tauraus Mutual Fund.

“As and when a rally comes, it will be the index stocks that will benefit,” said Gupta.

Top lenders State Bank of India and ICICI Bank rose between 1.4 and 2 percent a day after both raised lending rates.

Auto maker Tata Motors fell more than 2 percent after the firm on Thursday posted roughly flat profit in the fiscal first quarter that lagged estimates as higher costs squeezed margins, and said rising interest rates in Asia’s third largest economy was a matter of concern.

Shares in India’s L&T Finance Holdings fell as much as 5.2 percent on their trading debut on Friday, casting a shadow over the prospects of new share sales in a sluggish stock market.

The MSCI’s measure of Asian markets other than Japan was up 0.73 percent, while Japan’s Nikkei fell 0.25 percent.

Wall Street rose 4 percent overnight on high trading volume,though a slide in U.S. stock futures in early Asian trade kept the region’s climb modest.The 50-share NSE index was also flat at 5,138.3 points.

In the broader market, 890 advances outnumbered 382 declines on volume of 182.3 million shares.

* GMR Infrastructure rose as much as 3.5 percent after it said its unit would buy a 30 percent stake in Indonesia’s Pt Golden Energy Mines for $450 million to $550 million.

* Adani Enterprise rose as much as 2.8 percent after a newspaper reported its unit Adani Gas will pick up 20 percent equity in Green Gas Ltd, a joint venture between state-run gas utility GAIL India and Indian Oil Corp (IOC).

Top 3 by volume on NSE

* L&T Finance on 47.5 million shares

*Suzlon Energy on 2.6 million shares

*Unitech on 2.5 million shares

Reuters