Sensex up over 100 pts, Nifty nears 6350; banks gain

After a dull trading day on Wednesday, the market gained strength on Thursday with the Sensex rising over 100 points and the Nifty racing towards 6350 level.

The Sensex rose 117.74 points to 21,258.22, and the Nifty climbed 33.75 points to 6,335.40. The BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices too gained 0.6 percent each.

[caption id=“attachment_1260665” align=“alignright” width=“380”]  Reuters[/caption]

HDFC topped the gainers list in the Sensex, rising 1.6 percent followed by ICICI Bank , HDFC Bank , ONGC and Axis Bank with a 1 percent upmove. Shares of ITC , Reliance Industries , TCS , Larsen and Toubro and State Bank of India gained more than 0.7 percent.

However, Coal India and Bharti Airtel are under pressure.

Gaurang Shah, assistant vice president at Geojit BNP Paribas Financial Services, said markets are likely to be lackluster in the near term as to FII participation is likely to be weak due to new year holidays. “Nifty is likely to trade in a range of 6280-6330,” he added.

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Meanwhile, the rupee was unchanged at 61.90 per dollar in opening trade on Thursday as compared previous day’s closing value.

Ashutosh Raina of HDFC Bank believes the rupee is moving sideways and is expected to continue this trajectory for some more time, till more data cues come in. He expects rupee to trade in the range of 61.50-62.50/dollar for some more time.

After being the best performing currency of 2013, the euro trades flat this morning at 1.37/dollar, while the dollar index holds above 80 levels and the yen is elevated at 105/dollar.

Stocks in news:

Maruti Suzuki is up 0.55 percent. Car sales of Maruti Suzuki declined 1.3 percent MoM to 90,924 units in December. Domestic sales rose 1.3 percent, but exports fell 35 percent.

Stocks contributing to Sensex gains - HDFC up 2 pct, ICICI up 1.6 pct, HDFC Bank up 1 pct, ITC gains 0.6 pct