Broader mkt underperforms; metal stocks shine

The key equity benchmarks continued to trade with decent gains in morning trade. The Nifty traded above the 22,950 mark. Metal shares advanced after declining in the past two consecutive trading sessions.

At 10:28 ST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was up 148.60 points or 0.20% to 75,539.10. The Nifty 50 index rose 61.75 points or 0.27% to 22,994.20.

The broader market underperformed the frontline indices. The S&P BSE Mid-Cap index shed 0.14% and the S&P BSE Small-Cap index declined 0.44%.

The market breadth was positive. On the BSE, 1,415 shares rose and 2,075 shares fell. A total of 155 shares were unchanged.

Results Today:

Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (down 1.10%), Campus Activewear (down 1.04%), Capacite Infraprojects (up 3.49%), Prestige Estates Projects (down 0.37%), Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail (up 0.79%), Brigade Enterprises (down 1.35%), EIH (up 2.15%), Engineers India (down 4.13%), General Insurance Corporation of India (down 1.93%), Ingersoll-Rand (India) (up 1.39%), NBCC (India) (down 3.48%), PTC Industires (up 0.35%) and Wockhardt (down 1.91%) will announce their quarterly earnings later in the day.

Buzzing Index:

The Nifty Metal index added 0.79% to 9,944.80. The index declined 0.93% in the past two trading sessions.

National Aluminium Company (up 2.5%), Hindustan Zinc (up 2.4%), Hindalco Industries (up 1.76%), Vedanta (up 1.09%), Hindustan Copper (up 0.96%), Tata Steel (up 0.54%), Ratnamani Metals & Tubes (up 0.07%), JSW Steel (up 0.03%) edged higher.

On the other hand, APL Apollo Tubes (down 2.24%), Welspun Corp (down 1.46%) and Jindal Stainless (down 1.16%) slipped.

National Aluminium Company rallied 2.5% after the company�s net profit zoomed 101.36% to Rs 996.74 crore in the quarter ended March 2024 as against Rs 495.00 crore during the previous quarter ended March 2023. Sales declined 2.51% to Rs 3579.05 crore in the quarter ended March 2024 as against Rs 3671.37 crore during the previous quarter ended March 2023.

Stocks in Spotlight:

Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) declined 1.61%. The company reported 2.49% jump in net profit to Rs 13,762.64 crore in Q4 FY24 as compared with Rs 13,427.81 crore posted in Q4 FY23. Total premium income surged 15.58% to Rs 1,52,293.13 crore in the fourth quarter of FY24 as compared with Rs 1,31,761.11 crore recorded in the fourth quarter of FY23.

VA Tech Wabag shed 0.46%. The company said that it has secured an order worth around Rs 85 crore from Nama Water Services in the Sultanate of Oman towards operation & maintenance (O&M) of the Al Duqm Desalination Plant for a period of 5 years.

Powered by Capital Market - Live News