Sensex up 100 pts, Bharti Infra IPO and Banking Bill passage key

It’s a strong start for the markets today with investors bracing for the Bharti Infratel IPO launch and the government possibly seeking a vote on banking reform bill in Lok Sabha.

The Sensex opened 100 points higher at 19500, while the Nifty is up 17 points at 5926.

Technical analyst Sudarshan Sukhani said yesterday’s narrow range day and SGX Nifty, indicate there will be a breakout on the upside. “f that is so, then in the morning, after first few minutes of cooling off, traders should go long.”

However, “The Banking Laws (Amendment) Bill 2012 in the Lok Sabha saw stiff resistance and its smooth passage in the coming days appears to be a challenge for now,” said IIFL in a note.

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TCS, RIL, Infosys, Wipro, SBI, ICICI Bank, Tata Steel, Hero MotoCorp, ONGC, Bharti Airtel, Sun Pharma, BHEL, HDFC, Dr Reddys Lab, Bajaj Auto, Tata Motors, Hindalco Inds, are among gainers in Sensex and Nifty.

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10 percent of **Bharti Infratel’**s equity is up for sale in the IPO starting today, which ends on Friday. Bharti Infratel has set a price band of between Rs 210 and Rs 240 a share for the issue of 188.9 million shares, or 10 percent of its equity, in what will be the country’s biggest IPO in two years.

Investors are also likely to follow the 10% stake sale offer by the government in the state miner NMDC which aims to raise $ 1.1bn or Rs. 6.6bn for the deficit laden government. The price band set by Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) in a meeting yesterday is Rs.145-150/share.

The initial public offer of PC Jeweller, however, got subscribed just 2 percent yesterday, with only retail investors showing interest on the first day of the issue. The Rs 609 crore IPO attracted bids for 6.38 lakh shares, as against 3.84 crore shares on offer by 1700 hrs, as per data available with the National Stock Exchange.