Sensex closes above 16,700, highest since 7 May

It was a volatile session on the street today, however, markets managed to ignore RBI comments and closed in green. The Sensex recovered from earlier falls to end at its highest close since 7 May on Friday.

The BSE Sensex closed up 70 points to 16,718, up 233 points from the day’s low. The S&P CNX Nifty closed up 18 points at 5068. The market breath was positive. On the BSE, 1,376 stocks advanced while 1,342 declined. Markets had earlier fallen as they reacted to comments made by RBI deputy governor that domestic interest rates are not too high to impact economic growth.

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Larsen & Toubro surged as investors bet it would benefit from potential rate cuts and the government’s push to boost infrastructure.

Among sectoral indices, capital goods caught investors fancy as it rose by 2.3 percent followed by realty and FMCG. In the 30-share Sensex pack, 22 closed in green. The top gainers included Sterlite Inds (3.5 percent), Gail (3 percent).

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It was also a good week for the stock markets as they saw the highest ever weekly absolute gains in 2012, with the Nifty rising 4.7 percent and the Sensex 5 percent. Looking at the sharp recovery in the markets, it seems that investors are keenly awaiting the big events lined up this week. While we have the IIP data for April on 12 June, we also have the inflation on 14 May and the RBI policy on 18 May.

“In the short term, the RBI rate decision will be keenly watched. The April IIP as well as the May Inflation data, which will be released next week, may have a bearing on the RBI policy decision. The progress of monsoons will also be closely tracked. Globally, the election outcome in Greece will be the major event to watch out for. Crude prices have softened and the Brent crude is below the $100 / barrel mark, which provides some cushion to the country’s finances. The rupee has also remained at around the 55 per USD mark.

We maintain that, reforms are important pre-requisite for the markets to stabilize and move up. In the current scenario, we recommend a bottoms-up approach and would advise investors to use dips to accumulate stocks of companies having ethical managements and strong balance sheets across sectors Initiation of reforms may make us take a more constructive long-term view of the markets " says Dipen Shah, Head of Fundamental Research, Kotak Securities

•Tecpro Systems gained 3.5 percent after the company said its wholly-owned subsidiary received a letter of intent for order worth $32.7 million from Hyundai Rotem Company of Korea.

•Jain Irrigation Systems rose 0.8 percent after Macquarie Bank acquired 1.14 percent stake in the company through a bulk deal on the NSE on Thursday.