Nifty holds on to 5,400, BPCL, HPCL, Tata Steel up
The bank reported a core results pre-tax loss of 998 million francs, including the negative impact of 981 million francs from cost and risk reduction programmes.
India's benchmark indices rebounded from early losses and traded higher Friday. The Sensex traded 36 points or 0.20% higher at 17,866 while the broader Nifty index advanced 8 points to 5,420 at 0935 hours.
Stocks traded higher despite weakness on Asian bourses. Global sentiments took a hit after Europe's finance ministers demanded more spending cuts from Greece before clearing the next tranche of bailout money needed to save the country from a default on its massive debt. Markets in Hong Kong (-0.6%), South Korea (-1%) and Japan (-0.4%) were down.
Analysts said Indian markets were rising on the back of foreign flows. The direction of markets is purely going to be on the basis of the flow and strength of the flows over the next few months, TS Harihar, Sr Vice President of ICICI Securities told NDTV Profit today.
"Neither fundamentals nor technical are driving the markets... this is a liquidity driven rally. It is difficult to predict the nature and structure of inflows that will come over the next few months. The ETF (exchange traded funds) money may continue to relocate to India taking the Nifty back to 6,000-6,500 levels. But we may go all the way back to 4,600 levels too," he added.
Technical analysts said the Nifty might soon touch 5,500 levels.
Realty and IT stocks saw some profit booking. Most other sectoral indices traded with a positive bias on the Bombay Stock Exchange.
BPCL (3%) was the top gainer on the Nifty index. The company will report its Q3 earnings today. Tata Power (2.5%) and Sesa Goa (2.3%) were the other big gainers on the Nifty index.
Tata Steel (1.9%) rose despite reporting a decline in EBITDA margins for the third quarter ending December 2011. Reliance Communications (1.3%) traded higher ahead of its Q3 earnings.
Hindalco (-1.8%) was down. The company had reported weak numbers yesterday. DLF (-1.7%) traded lower ahead of reporting Q3 numbers later today.
Broader markets outperformed the benchmarks. The market breadth was positive and nearly 80 per cent stocks traded higher on the NSE 500 index.