8:00AM NY-7:00PM Mumbai Sensex ends higher on a rally in banking stocks.

The Sensex on BSE finished 16.05 points, or 0.12%, higher at 13,781.51.

The market-breadth was negative as 1,122 stocks advanced, while 1,407 stocks declined and only 104 stocks remained unchanged. Of the 30 stocks in the Sensex, 17 advanced, while the rest declined. The market was highly volatile and traded in the range of 194 points. The turnover on BSE was Rs 3,937 crore, lower than Rs 4,280.65 crore on Tuesday. On NSE, the turnover was Rs 8,394.44 crore, lower than Rs 9,549.68 crore on Tuesday.

Economic news

The Indian government fixed a floor price of 850 rupees a share for selling its remaining 10.27% stake in car maker Maruti Uduog. Suzuki Motor Corp owns 54.2% of Maruti.

Global mobile company Vodafone announced Wednesday it has formally acquired the controlling stake in Hutch-Essar from Hong Kong-based Hutchison Telecommunications International for $10.9 billion.

India’s oilmeal exports increased in April more than 8% to 432,950 tons from a year ago on improved sales of rapeseed meal. India exported 399,225 tons of oilmeal in April 2006.

Trading highlight

ICRA was the most-active stock with a turnover of Rs 250.14 crore followed by Indiabulls and new-issue Fortis.

Advancers

Late buying interest in bank stocks helped the rally. SBI soared 3.8% to Rs 1,123 and privately owned ICICI Bank was up 0.9% at Rs 849, while HDFC Bank was up 0.71% to Rs 997. Other gainers included Hero Honda, which rallied 3.2% to Rs 701, and Reliance Energy surging 2.7% to Rs 519. Tata Steel gained 1.6% to close at Rs 562 and Bajaj Auto added 1.2% to Rs 2,564.

Ranbaxy Laboratories settled 1.1% higher to Rs 393. The pharmaceutical company is intending to invest around Rs 60 crore to upgrade the recently acquired Be-Tabs Pharma units in South Africa. Index heavy Reliance Industries rose 0.27% to Rs 1,598 on 6.38 lakh shares. It recovered from a low of Rs 1,577.

Decliners

IT large-cap TCS led the decliners, shedding 2.5% to Rs 1,237. Hindustan Lever and Cipla dropped 1.8% each to Rs 191 and Rs 208, respectively. ONGC slipped 1.4% to Rs 909. ACC and Infosys declined over 1% each to Rs 876 and Rs 1,981, respectively.

New issue Fortis Healthcare finished at Rs 100, lower than the IPO price of Rs 108 per share. The stock opened at Rs 105 and rallied to a high of Rs 109.10. Its low for the day was Rs 97.90.


6:30AM European markets gain Wednesday as miners lead on merger talk.
European markets are higher on Wednesday. By late morning in London, Frankfurt Xetra Dax added 0.4% to 7,468.53, the CAC 40 climbed 0.3% to 6,054.42 and London FTSE 100 gained 0.3% to 6,571.4. National benchmarks gained in 12 of 18 western European markets except Iceland.

Advancers

London-listed miners led gainers amid rumours BHP Billiton was ready to make a takeover offer for Rio Tinto. Rio shares added 5.8% and BHP gained 3%, while expectations of consolidation within the sector drove Kazakhmys 3.1% higher and Xstrata climbed 2.4%.

Financial sector gains were led by BNP Paribas of France, which added 3.8% to a record high after posting forecast-topping first-quarter profit, lifted by investment banking and asset management gains. Credit Agricole rose 3.1% as takeover speculation continued to drift among the banking stocks.