Nifty hits one-month high; DTH and power shares rally

The key Indian stock indices have sustained their early gains in early afternoon trade, extending last week’s ascent after Spain received emergency rescue money to strengthen its ailing banks and China’s trade showed resilience last month.

It’s a jubilant Monday morning as the stock markets are on an upward trend. The BSE Sensex, the barometer of the Indian economy, is up 122 points to 16,841, highest since 8th May. The S&P CNX Nifty is also up 40 points to 5,109. The market breath is positive. On the BSE, 1,701 stocks gained while 871 declined. The BSE midcap and the small cap are also up a percent each.

Among sectoral indices, all of the indices (baring healthcare) are trading in the green. The top gainers include consumer durables, power, metals and realty which are up 1-2 percent.

In the 30-share Sensex, 24 are in the green led by Tata Power (4 percent) and Sterlite Industries (3.7 percent). Losers included Cipla and Sun Pharma.

Lanco Infra is the top gainer among the “A” group scrips followed by Voltas and Adani Power.

However, stocks that have made news today were Videocon and BPCL as they galloped on the exchange after the announcement of gas discoveries in Mozambique.

Shares of Direct-to-home companies were also quite active in trade after the Union government on Friday ruled out extension of the June 30 deadline for digitization of cable services in metro cities. Den Networks (5.75 percent), Wire and Wireless (2 percent) and Dish TV India (1.7 percent) gained.

Meanwhile, power producing majors like Tata Power, Adani Power, JSW Energy and Reliance Infra rallied sharply amid reports that power projects using imported coal could be allowed to hike tariffs by up to Re 1 per unit to counter the effect of increase in fuel price due to additional taxes or changes in law by the governments of source nations.

Reliance Capital is up 2 percent on BSE on reports that the Reserve Bank of India has allowed the company to sell stake in its mutual fund business unit to Japan’s Nippon Life.According to the Mint article, Reliance Capital is selling 26% stake in Reliance Capital Asset Management Company (RCAM) to Japan’s Nippon Life for Rs 1450 crore.