Nifty firm above 5,650; rupee appreciates to 65.41/$

MUMBAI: The Nifty maintained its upward momentum and was firmly placed above 5,650 mark on the back of pull-back rally led by banks. According to analysts, after the recent run-up, some more upside can be expected in the market but traders should be cautious.

The sentiment of institutional investors in the Indian market turned bullish after Raghuram Rajan took charge as the new governor of the Reserve Bank of India. He announced measures that could potentially change the course of the rupee.

The forex market cheered the roadmap chalked out by the governor and the rupee strengthened against the dollar. The partially convertible rupee was at 65.41, up 60 paise, against its previous close of 66.12 per dollar.

At 02:20 p.m.; the 50-share index was at 5,660.25, up 67.30 points or 1.20 per cent. It touched a high of 5,673.80 and a low of 5,566.15 in trade today.

The S&P BSE Sensex was at 19,197.55, up 217.79 points or 1.15 per cent. It touched a high of 19,249.35 and a low of 18,929.38 in trade today.

The S&P BSE Midcap Index was up 0.48 per cent and the S&P BSE Smallcap Index was up 0.68 per cent.

Among the sectoral indices, the S&P BSE Capital Goods Index gained 3.05 per cent, the S&P Bankex advanced 1.66 per cent and the S&P BSE Power Index was up 1.66 per cent.

The S&P BSE Realty Index was down 0.36 per cent and the S&P BSE Auto Index was 0.13 per cent lower.

ICICI Bank (6.34 per cent), Bharti Airtel (6.26 per cent), Grasim (4.75 per cent), ONGC (4.42 per cent) and L&T (4.38 per cent) were among the major Nifty gainers.

Bank of Baroda (4.62 per cent), Coal India (2.47 per cent), Hindustan Unilever (1.96 per cent), Lupin (1.91 per cent) and Tata Power (1.65 per cent) were among the top losers.

The market breadth was positive on the NSE with 705 gainers against 466 losers.

The foreign institutional investors bought shares worth Rs 1,101.41 crore while domestic institutional investors were net sellers worth Rs 492.82 crore on Thursday as per the provisional data from the National Stock Exchange.