Sensex at 1-month high; NTPC tanks 11%, Tata Power gains 5%

Mumbai: The benchmark BSE Sensex on Monday rose by 111 points to end at one-month high of 20,811.44 on buying in capital goods, banking, pharma and auto stocks on signs of continued capital inflows, though global trends were weak.

State-owned NTPC, however, tanked 11.43 percent to end the day as the biggest Sensex loser on concerns that the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission's (CERC) tariff regulations would be negative on the power producer.

The 30-share BSE barometer resumed lower and gradually recovered, improving further to settle at one-month high of 20,811.44, a rise or 110.69 points or 0.53 percent. The last time the key index closed at this level was on January 24.

The 50-issue Nifty of NSE also rose by 30.65 points or 0.50 percent to close at 6,186.10.

Tata Power was the biggest Sensex gainer at a little over 5 percent.

"Following the implications that the CERC has announced final tariff orders, NTPC was seen down over 11 percent... Tata Power was up by over 5 percent as the latter has been allowed to hike tariff and got relief in form of compensation to make up for losses incurred at its Mundra plant," said Nidhi Saraswat, Senior Research Analyst, Bonanza Portfolio.

Besides Tata Power, major gainers were BHEL at 3.95 percent, Axis Bank at 3.85 percent, Larsen 2.85 percent, Dr Reddy's Lab 2.42 percent, ONGC 1.86 percent, Hero Motocorp 1.67 percent, HDFC 1.53 percent, Gail India 1.51 percent, M&M 1.47 percent, ICICI percent, Wipro 1.10 percent and Sun Pharma 0.98 percent.

Brokers said the market may remain volatile this week on expiry of February contract of futures and options on Wednesday. The stock market will remain closed on February 27 on account of Mahashivratri.

Meanwhile, Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 603.41 crore on last Friday, as per provisional data from the stock exchanges.

Jignesh Chaudhary, Head Of Research, Veracity Broking Services, said trading picked up momentum in the mid-noon and afternoon trade with institutional investors indulging in buying-spree which resulted in positive rallies in banking and capital goods shares.

Of 30 Sensex shares, 22 ended higher while remaining eight closed lower.

Big losers included Bharti Airtel at 1.84 percent, Tata Steel 1.26 percent, TCS 1.23 percent and SSLT 1.16 percent.

Among the S&P BSE sectoral indices, consumer goods rose by 2.63 percent, Bankex 1.11 percent and healthcare 1.11 percent, while Power fell by 1.45 percent.

Market breadth continued to rule firm as 1,371 shares finished in the green while 1,293 ended in the red while 145 ruled steady.

Asian stocks ended mostly lower as investors appeared to have given no more than a passing approval to G20's latest commitment to spur faster global growth.

Key benchmark indices in Japan, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong and South Korea fell in the range of 0.19-1.75 percent, while the Straits Times index in Singapore rose 0.19 percent.

European stocks were also trading lower with key indices in Germany and the UK declining by 0.06 0.26 percent, while France CAC was up by 0.30 percent.