 "Sensex snaps 4-day winning streak, Maruti shines on stellar results")
The Indian markets fell on Friday, snapping a four-day winning streak, led by declines in lenders such as ICICI Bank on profit-taking, after recent steep gains on rate-cut hopes were seen as overdone ahead of the central bank’s annual policy review next week.
While the Sensex fell 0.62 percent to 19282, the Nifty fell 0.76 percent to 5871.
“Start of the fresh F&O series turned out to be appalling one for Indian equity markets as bulls took a breather from the recent rally. After starting the session on negative note, benchmarks kept grinding lower and concluded with a cut of over half a percent. Not once throughout the session, did the benchmarks attempt to stage recovery and ended only near day’s lowest point,” said Nirmal Bang in a research report.
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ICICI Bank Ltd fell 2.79 percent soon after it announced January-March quarter earnings. The private sector lender’s net profit grew 21 percent year-on-year to Rs 2,304 crore (in line with estimates) in the fourth quarter of FY13. Net interest income rose by 22.5 percent to Rs 3,803 from Rs 3,105 crore during the same period.
State Bank of India Ltd ended 2 percent lower.
Meanwhile, strong fourth quarter earnings boosted Maruti; the stock closed 5.2 percent higher. The largest passenger car maker’s fourth quarter standalone net profit accelerated significantly better-than-expected 80 percent year-on-year to Rs 1,148 crore, sending its stock surging to a new 52-week high of Rs 1,693 on NSE.
Hero MotoCorp’s fourth quarter sales were in line with the estimates. Net profit came in ahead of the estimates at Rs 574.3 crore. Operating profit margins also improved to 13.8 percent.
LIC Housing Finance stocks soared over 6% after the company reported 25% rise in net profit at Rs 316 crore for the quarter ended March 2013.
In the broader market, stocks like Welspun Corp, Sobha Developer, United Phosphorous, Blue Dart, TTK Prestige ended with snart gains. Delta Corp, Unitech, HDIL, Persistent and Punj Lloyd were top losers in the BSE Midcap index.
Meanwhile, expressing confidence that India’s economy will get back to its potential growth rate, President Pranab Mukherjee has said that the country would be able to return to the 7 to 8 percent growth level in the next two to three years on the back of measures taken by the government.