Review of today's Indian stock market

Shrugging off Budget blues, Indian stock market indices managed to close with gains after Finance Ministry today clarified that Tax Residency Certificate (TRC) issued by Mauritius would be accepted by the tax authorities. Positive global cues and value based buying in a number of blue-chip stokes at attractive prices also helped the market to bounce back from its lowest level in three months. The TRC issue was so much important for Foreign Institutional Investors (FII) that, FIIs, which were net buyers to the tune of almost Rs 24,440 crore in the month of February till February 27, sold shares worth Rs 1,317.79 crore yesterday as per provisional data with stock exchanges.

The 30-share BSE Sensex gained 56.98 points to end the day’s trading at 18918.52. The Sensex hit to a day's high of 18988.97and a fell to a day's low of 18820.90. It opened at 18876.68. The broader indices, NSE Nifty gained 26.65 points, to end the day’s trading at 5719.70. The 50-share Nifty touched a day's high of 5739.45 and fell to a day's low of 5679.90. It opened at 5702.45.

Of the 50-share Nifty pack 29 stocks ended with gains while the rest 21 stocks closed with loses. The top 5 gainers among NSE stocks are: Maruti surging by 5.17 %, followed by J P Associates (3.88 %), BPCL (3.640 %), Power Grid (3.50 %) and Reliance Infra (3.40 %). The top 5 losers among NSE socks are: DLF (6.49 %), Bharti Airtel (3.65 %), IDFC (2.21 %), Siemens (1.80 %) and Cairn India (1.66 %).

Of the 30 shares of BSE index components, only 16 stocks ended in positive terrain, while the rest 14 stocks closed in negative zone. The top 5 gainer in BSE Sensex stocks are: Maruti by 4.98 %, followed by Jindal Steel (2.87 %), Tata Power (2.70 %), Bajaj Auto (2.63 %) and L&T (2.51 %). The top 5 losers of the Sensex pack were: Bharti Airtel (3.89 %), ITC (1.42 %), Dr. Reddy’s (1.30 %), Hero MotoCorp (1.30 %) and TCS (1.00 %).

Both BSE Mid Cap and Small Cap index closed with only marginal gains in today’s trade. Among the 13 sectoral indices in BSE, only 4 sectors ended with losses while 9 sectors closed with gains.  Top three gainers of the BSE sectoral indices are: BSE CD up by 3.20%, BSE CG rising by 1.62%, BSE Auto up 1.50%. Top 3 loosing sectors were: BSE Realty was down by 3.93%, BSE TECk falling by 0.22% and BSE FMCG down by 0.09%

The advance decline ratio was in favor of the bulls. Of the 2970 stocks traded on the BSE, 1336 (44.98%) rose, 1522 (51.25%) fell and 112 (3.77%) stocks remained unchanged.