Friday April 13, 03:30 PM
Tech-tonic! |
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By Equitymaster.com
Quite fittingly, the markets climbed up further during the final hour of trade as bulls capped off a strong day on the bourses today. The heightened buying activity among software, banking and auto stocks drove the indices higher during the last trading hour. However, select stocks from FMCG, pharma and energy sector delivered a lackluster performance as selling pressures continued to weigh on them.
The BSE Sensex closed at 13,389 (up 275 points) while the NSE Nifty closed at 3,916 (up 86 points). The rupee was trading at 42.68 to the dollar.
Investors had a field day today as indices were on a strong footing right from the beginning. Infosys announced good set of FY07 numbers and investors, sensing that no major troubles lie ahead, bought heavily into software stocks. This feel good effect eventually rubbed off on other heavyweights also thus enabling the indices to close on a high. Infosys has given a good start to FY07 results announcement season and it remains to be seen whether other heavyweights are able to do a repeat act.
Software major Infosys has announced its fourth quarter and full year results ended March 2007. On QoQ basis the topline has registered a growth of 3.2%, while the bottomline grew by 16.4% QoQ. Infosys has added 34 new clients and 5,992 employees in the last quarter of FY07. For the full year, the company has registered a growth of 46% YoY in the topline. The bottomline has grown by a whopping 57% YoY. The results are in line with the guidance given by the company. It has also declared a dividend of Rs 6.5 per share along with FY08E EPS growth guidance of 22.6%. The stock was up 2% along with its peers Satyam (up 8%), Wipro (WIPRd.BO, news) and TCS (up 5% each).
The shares of ICRA debuted on the bourses with a premium of 92% to their upper limit of the issue price. The company is the second largest credit rating agency in India after CRISIL (CRSL.BO, news) with a 32% share in the country's debt rating services. While rating continues to be the primary business of the company, it also provides a host of other services vide its subsidiaries. The expected growth in the size of the corporate debt market in India from their rather minuscule levels at present, the diversified business model of the company and the rating and consultancy business it expects to garner from SBI post the issue made a strong case for applying to the same. The stock closed the day 31% higher to its listing price.
Logistics stocks traded firm with Transport Corporation of India (up 10%) and Container Corporation (up 6%) being the major gainers. According to a leading business daily, truck operators are planning to increase freight rates by 10% to 15% to offset the rising cost of buying commercial vehicles due to hardening interest rates. The prevailing interest rate for commercial vehicles is currently 15% to 15.5% as compared to 10% to 11% some months ago. About 98% of all commercial vehicles in India are financed. According to the All India Motor Transport Congress, an apex body of transporters, interest rate rise of 4% in the past nine months has increased the cost of owning a truck by over 40%. Increase in freight rates is likely to make road transport more expensive in comparison to rail transport for long distances.
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