Nifty closes above 5000; Hindalco, Reliance Infra up

MUMBAI: Equities pulled back from support levels and ended on a higher note Tuesday. The bounce back was led by FMCG, metals and banks while telecom and realty stocks ended in the red.

National Stock Exchange’s Nifty ended at 5024.75, up 21.55 points or 0.40 per cent. The index touched an intra-day high of 5034.70 and low of 4921.05.

Bombay Stock Exchange’s Sensex was at 16949.31, up 41.35 points or 0.24 per cent. The index touched a high of 16979.06 and low of 16622.05.

BSE Midcap Index was up 0.25 per cent and BSE Smallcap Index slipped 0.8 per cent.

Amongst the sectoral indices, BSE FMCG Index jumped 3.11 per cent, BSE Metal Index gained 2.33 per cent and BSE Bankex moved 1.90 per cent higher.

BSE IT Index declined 1.04 per cent and BSE Realty Index slipped 0.92 per cent.

Shares of telecom companies were under pressure after on reports that the telecom regular TRAI was planning to ask companies to offer ‘pay per second’ billing to customers. This move is likely to intensify price war in telecom companies eventually impacting margins.

Reliance Communications on Monday unveiled its new 50 paise tariff plan called ‘Simply Reliance’ in an attempt to increase its market share in India’s hyper-competitive telecom market. This move comes after Tata DoCoMo’s one-second billing plan and rival Bharti Airtel’s announcement that it will charge 50 paise a minute for local and national long-distance calls within its own network.

Biggest Nifty gainers were Hindalco (6.53%), Reliance Infrastructure (5.17%), Hindustan Unilever (4.77%), ITC (4.02%) and BHEL (3.62%).

Telecom stocks led declines on the Nifty. Bharti Airtel dropped (10.76%), Reliance Communication lost 10.61 per cent and Idea Cellular shed 8.02 per cent. Other losers in the Nifty pack were HCL Technologies (-5.34%), Ambuja Cements (-3.03%) and ACC (-2.8%).

Market breadth was negative on the BSE with 1709 declines and 1012 advances.