Nifty ends above 8750, Sensex jumps; banks support

03:30pm Market Closing: The market sustained its uptrend for the fifth consecutive session today with the Sensex rallying 177.46 points to 28885.21 after the Moody's upgraded outlook on India to positive from stable. The Nifty closed above 8750, up 63.90 points at 8778.30 supported by Reliance Industries and banks stocks.

About 1578 shares have advanced, 1263 shares declined, and 144 shares are unchanged on the BSE.

03:20pm Telecom stocks in News: Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular fell 2.5 percent after TRAI said it has reduced ceiling tariffs for national roaming service w.e.f. May 1, mandating telecom companies to offer special roaming tariff plan.

The telecom regulator cut ceiling tariff on outgoing local voice call on roaming to 80 paise per minute and ceiling tariff on incoming local call charges on roaming to 45 paise per minute.

03:10pm Market Update: The market gained strength again. The Sensex rose 152.80 points to 28860.55 and the Nifty rallied 57.40 points to 8771.80. About 1498 shares have advanced, 1255 shares declined, and 159 shares are unchanged on the BSE.

Reliance Industries, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, SBI and Tata Steel surged 1.5-3 percent while Sun Pharma, Bharti Airtel, Cipla and GAIL fell 2-4 percent. BSE Bankex went up 2.7 percent.

02:50pm Rajan talks to CNBC-TV15: The outlook upgrade is a positive perception of what we have done over the past few quarters. Presumably Moody's sees this as a first step to rating upgrade, said Reserve Bank Governor Raghuram Rajan.

He, however, cautions that the government and regulators should not lose sight on what more needs to be done. ''We should not celebrate upgrades as we did not worry about downgrades. There are a lot of low-hanging fruits that need to be picked,'' Rajan said in an exclusive interview to CNBC-TV18.

The RBI left the key interest rates unchanged at its bi-monthly review on April 7, after effecting two out-of-cycle rate cuts earlier this year for 25 basis points (0.25 percent) each.

Rajan said the quality of fiscal spending, which has been subdued over the last few years, is more important. The state of economy is weak and a high quality fiscal spending can be a good thing, but ramping it up will take some time.

On inflation, Rajan said that the country is still not out of woods and he would be happy to see more steps on fiscal consolidation.

02:25pm FII View: India's outlook upgrade by Moody's isa reflection of the fundamentals improving dramatically in India and it will lead to further inflows by FIIs, said Hans Goetti, head of Investment – Asia, Banque Internationale.

"We have actually seen quite a lot of inflows over the past few months into bonds especially fixed income. This is because interest rates in India are bound to come down as inflation comes down and on a risk reward basis bonds are probably even more attractive than equities at this point, so foreign inflows will continue," he added.

02:00pm Market Check
The market continued to be choppy with positive bias in afternoon trade. Banks, select metals and Reliance Industries supported the market whereas pharma, capital goods and PSU oil stocks remained under pressure.
 
The Sensex rose 41.97 points to 28749.72 and the Nifty advanced 19.05 points to 8733.45. About 1488 shares have advanced, 1183 shares declined, and 152 shares are unchanged on the BSE.

The big news of the day was that Moody's upgraded India's outlook to positive from stable, but the rating remains unchanged at Baa3. The rating agency told CNBC-TV18 that rating upgrade will depend on investment uptick & reform implementation.

Banking majors ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, SBI and Axis Bank rallied 1.5-2.5 percent with the Bank Nifty up 300 points. Tata Steel climbed 1.7 percent. Coal India advanced over 1 percent as brokerage Macquarie reiterated its outperform rating on the stock with increased target price of Rs 452 (from Rs 420) and upgraded earnings by 8 percent after coal ministry issued a directive removing an earlier cap on e-auction volume effective April 2015.

However, pharma stocks declined as Bank of America Merrill Lynch downgraded Sun Pharma to underperform from buy; and Lupin, Cipla & Cadila Healthcare to neutral from buy. The brokerage believes that some stocks in sector may be priced to perfection with less room for error. Sun Pharma, Lupin and Cadila Healthcare tanked 3.5 percent each while Cipla lost 2.4 percent.

Inox Wind listed at a 24 percent premium to the issue price of Rs 325 today. Deepak Asher, Director of the company said the company is extremely bullish on the renewable energy sector which is set for unprecedented growth going forward.

Meanwhle, the law finally catched up with Ramalinga Raju as the Hyderabad Special Court found Raju and all accused guilty in the Satyam fraud case.. The court found Raju guilty of cheating, forgery, criminal breach of trust. The court will decide the quantum of sentence today.

01:50pm Interview: There is a long way to go for consumption to increase and happen, believes Lalit Agarwal, CMD, V-Mart Retail. According to him, there is no radical change happening this year when compared with last year.

However, he has a bullish approach on year 2016 backed by the initiatives taken up by the Modi government which are likely to get rolled up and people would see employment and more money in their pocket.

Speaking to CNBC-TV18 on the rural growth, Agarwal said the rural customers do not hold surplus cash causing sluggish growth in the region.

01:20pm Market Expert
Moody's positive outlook on India is a long-term positive because it opens up the flood gates for money to come into India, says Dharmesh Mehta, MD and CEO, Axis Capital. According to him, the long-term India story is very much intact and one should be buying into any kind of dips especially the earnings which may not be that great.

''People are still looking at what will happen in the next one-two years and if those reform processes are pushed ahead, India looks as a great investment story,'' he says in an interview to CNBC-TV18.

01:00pm Market Check
The market gained strength again in afternoon trade led by banking & financials, metals, technology stocks. Index heavyweight Reliance Industries was the biggest contributor to Sensex gains, up nearly 3 percent.

The Sensex rallied 119.41 points to 28827.16 and the Nifty climbed 41.25 points to 8755.65 while the BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices continued to outperform benchmarks, up 0.6-0.8 percent.

About 1516 shares have advanced, 1119 shares declined, and 157 shares are unchanged on the BSE.

Banking majors ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, SBI and Axis Bank extended gains, up 1.7-2.4 percent. Bank Nifty rallied 400 points. Tata Steel and HUL climbed 1-2 percent.

Coal India advanced over 1 percent as brokerage Macquarie reiterated its outperform rating on the stock with increased target price of Rs 452 (from Rs 420) and upgraded earnings by 8 percent after coal ministry issued a directive removing an earlier cap on e-auction volume effective April 2015.

However, Bharti Airtel and GAIL fell nearly 3 percent followed by ONGC, Tata Motors, ITC, L&T, BHEL, Bajaj Auto with marginal loss.

12:30pm Market Expert: Investors should look at a mix of infrastructure and consumer themes, says Nilesh Shah, Managing Director and CEO, Envision Capital. He sees real estate stocks as contrarian bets.

In an interview to CNBC-TV18, Shah says GST is critical to India's growth and once effective, it could do wonders to India's economy.

He says the foundation of the current bull market was laid 18 months ago, and that the big challenge before the government now is to revive growth.

Shah says India's fortunes are largely linked to its infrastructure development. However, he feels private investment in infrastructure could take time to revive, and so it is important that public spending takes off in a big way.

Shah sees the effective execution of the JAM (Jan Dhan, Aadhar, Mobile) kickstarting rural consumption in a big way.

According to Shah, demographics and urbanisation are the key driverrs of the economy and he expects India o outperform other markets for years to come.

12:00pm Market Check
The market gained marginal strength in noon trade supported by banks and index heavyweight Reliance Industries. However, pharma, capital goods, telecom and PSU oil stocks declined.

The Sensex gained 44.32 points at 28752.07 and the Nifty climbed 21.95 points to 8736.35. About 1400 shares have advanced, 1084 shares declined, and 175 shares are unchanged on the BSE.
 
Shares of Reliance Industries, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, SBI, HUL and Tata Steel rallied 1-2 percent whereas GAIL and Bharti Airtel fell more than 2.5 percent followed by Tata Motors with over 1 percent loss.

Pharma stocks declined as Bank of America Merrill Lynch downgraded Sun Pharma to underperform from buy; and Lupin, Cipla & Cadila Healthcare to neutral from buy. The brokerage believes that some stocks in sector may be priced to perfection with less room for error. Sun Pharma, Lupin, Cipla and Cadila fell 1.5-3.5 percent.

New listing: Inox Wind listed at a 24 percent premium to the issue price of Rs 325 today. Its director, Deepak Asher said the company is extremely bullish on the renewable energy sector which is set for unprecedented growth going forward.

Meanwhile, Moody's upgraded India's outlook to positive from stable but the rating remains unchanged at Baa3. Moody's said the rating upgrade will depend on investment uptick and reform implementation. Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian said that the outlook upgrade validated broad direction and stance of government policies.

11:30am Satyam Case Verdict: The Hyderabad Special Court probing the Satyam Computer Services accounting fraud has ruled the company's founder B Ramalinga Raju and nine others guilty of cheating, forgery and criminal breach of trust.

The court is now deciding on the quantum of sentence to the guilty.

The other nine include Ramalinga Raju's brothers B Rama Raju and Suryanarayana Raju, former CFO Vadlamani Srinivas, former PwC auditors Subramani Gopalakrishnan and T Srinivas, ex-Satyam internal auditor VS Prabhakar Gupta, and former Satyam employees G Ramakrishna, D Venkatpathi Raju and C Srisailam.

In July last year, the Securities and Exchange Board of India had fined Satyam founders Raju brothers-Ramalingam and Rama-and three former senior executives a total of Rs 1849 crore for their role in the accounting fraud that eventually led the company being sold to Tech Mahindra.

The three former Satyam executives penalized by Sebi were Vadlamani Srinivas, G Ramakrishna, and VS Prabhakara Gupta.

11:00am Market Check
The market entered into consolidation mode after rallying in previous sessions. Banking stocks gained while pharma stocks led declines.

The Sensex rose 21.03 points to 28728.78 and the Nifty gained 6.95 points at 8721.35. The broader markets outperformed benchmarks marginally; the BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices climbed 0.5 percent.

About 1300 shares have advanced, 941 shares declined, and 159 shares are unchanged on the BSE.

While keeping rating unchanged at Baa3, Moody's upgraded India's outlook to positive from stable. The rating agency believes that there is an increasing probability that actions by policy makers will enhance the country's economic strength.

Asian markets traded mixed. Hang Seng and Tokyo outperformed the region to scale fresh multi-year highs. Meanwhile, Shanghai fell post yesterday's seven-year closing highs.

Frontline pharma stocks saw profit taking. Bank of America Merill Lynch has downgraded Sun Pharma to underperform from buy and downgraded Lupin, Cipla and Cadila Healthcare to neutral from buy despite being positive on long term prospect. The brokeragey says it is difficult to find value and while some multiple expansion is justifiable given higher returns, some stocks in the sector may be priced to perfection with less room for error. Sun Pharma, Dr Reddy's Labs, Cipla and Lupin dropped 2-3 percent.

10:20am FII View: Adrian Mowat, JP Morgan said, "Our confidence in emerging markets (EM) equities is building and positioning in EM is bearish. ''Many of the structural issues, particularly in EM Asia, are reflected in the market. MSCI EM is outperforming DMs & US year to date,'' he adds.

The brokerage re-iterated overweight on India, he said, adding reform is progressing and it remains reasonable to forecast faster growth in H2 2015.

''We are concerned that Indian corporates and consumers prove cautious, resulting in a slower pickup in growth. The experience in developed markets is that investors are patient if policy remains supportive,'' Mowat said.

10:00am Market Check

The marked wiped out all its early gains due to profit booking in healthcare and heavyweights like Infosys, Reliance Industries & ITC. The Sensex shed 75.36 points to 28632.39 and the Nifty fell 28.80 points to 8685.60.

The broader markets too followed the same trend. About 955 shares have advanced, 822 shares declined, and 139 shares are unchanged on the BSE.

Pharma sector stocks dropped. Sun Pharma and Lupin fell over 2 percent. Bank of America Merrill Lynch downgraded Sun Pharma to underperform from buy and Lupin, Cipla & Cadila to neutral from buy. The brokerage said some stocks in sector may be priced to perfection with less room for error. Dr Reddy's Labs and Cipla declined 1-2 percent.

Inox Wind listed with 24 percent premium at Rs 401 on the National Stock Exchange compared to issue price of Rs 325 apiece.

09:50am Market Update: The market came off day's high. The Sensex rose 43.32 points to 28751.07 and the Nifty advanced 8.15 points to 8722.55 but the broader markets continued to outperform.

The BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices gained 0.6 percent each. More than two shares advanced for every share declining on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

09:35am Alcoa beats earnings estimates: Alcoa reported quarterly earnings that beat analysts' expectations, but its revenue fell slightly short.

The company, which is in the midst of a major business transformation push, reported adjusted first-quarter earnings per share of 28 cents on revenue of USD 5.82 billion.

Analysts had expected Alcoa to report earnings of 26 cents per share on USD 5.94 billion in revenue, according to a consensus estimate from Thomson Reuters.

Despite the revenue miss, the company took a positive outlook on its quarterly performance.

09:15am Market Check
The market extended its rally after Moody's upgraded India's outlook to positive from stable. The Sensex climbed 161.63 points to 28869.38 and the Nifty jumped 41.80 points to 8756.20.

FMCG, technology, auto, oil and select banks stocks gained while healthcare stocks fell.

About 488 shares have advanced, 58 shares declined, and 79 shares are unchanged on the BSE.

Moody's kept rating unchanged at Baa3. The rating agency believes that there is an increasing probability that actions by policy makers will enhance the country's economic strength. However, it cautioned that unless the country's banking system woes were resolved, its credit profile would remain constrained.

Government's divestment drive for the new fiscal has seen an electrifying start with REC offer-for-sale oversubscribed more than 5 times. Centre mopped up over Rs 1,500 crore from the 5 percent stake sale.

The Indian rupee has opened marginally higher at 62.16 per dollar today against 62.24 Wednesday.

Mohan Shenoi of Kotak Mahindra Bank said, "Upgrade of India's credit outlook by Moody's from stable to positive is likely to be positive for Indian equities, rupee and bonds."

According to him, the USD-INR is expected to trade in a range of 62.05-62.45/dollar.

The dollar rose on after the release of the Federal Reserve's FOMC meeting minutes. The euro is at session lows.

In the US, stocks closed higher as investors shook off a plunge in oil prices and digested the Federal Reserve's meeting minutes as mostly dovish. The Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) released the minutes of its March meeting, revealing that central bank policy makers were divided over the timing of an interest rate hike.

In Europe, equities closed mostly lower, despite a surge in energy stocks after Royal Dutch Shell launched a bid for UK-listed BG Group.

And Asia traded positive in the morning.

Among commodities, Nymex crude remained steady after falling 7 percent yesterday as data showed the largest weekly increase in the US crude inventories since 2001. Brent crude traded around USD 56 per barrel.