8:00AM NY-7:00PM Mumbai Sensex finishes marginally higher on April derivatives expiry.

The Sensex on BSE finished 11.11 points, or 0.08%, higher at 14,228.88.

The Sensex traded within a range of 256 points today. The market-breadth was weak as there were almost three decliners for every two gainers. As 1,049 stocks advanced, 1,482 declined and only 79 stocks remained unchanged. Of the 30 stocks in the Sensex, 15 advanced, while the other 15 declined. The turnover on BSE was Rs 4,465 crore, lower than Rs 5,200.34 crore on Wednesday. On NSE, the turnover was Rs 11,830.93 crore, higher than Rs 11,078.22 crore on Wednesday.

Economic news

The rupee hit a nine-year high against the dollar on, fourth in a row, and traders anticipated further gains despite the possibility that RBI might intervene to limit its momentum. In early trading, the rupee was at 40.74 per dollar, advancing from close of 40.90 on Wednesday.

Bandwidth costs and internet access charges might be significantly reduced soon with BSNL and MTNL planning to host web servers within the country by the middle of this year. Telecom Minister Dayanidhi Maran today announced that these state companies would set up web servers, which will enable the internet traffic to be diverted within India instead of being routed out of the country.

Market is keenly awaiting the release of inflation report tomorrow. The wholesale price inflation rate is expected to be at 6.09% for the twelve months ending 14th April 2007, unchanged from a week earlier.

Trading highlights

Reliance Industries was the most-active stock with a turnover of Rs 307 crore followed by Indiabulls Real Estate and Orbit Corp.

Advancers

Bajaj Auto and Grasim rallied over 2% each to Rs 2,491 and Rs 2,495, respectively. Grasim had risen 3.5% in early trade to Rs 2,529, supported by strong fourth-quarter results in fiscal 2007, which the company unveiled after trading hours on Wednesday. Grasim reported 80.5% growth in net profit and net sales surging 36.2%.

Information Technology large-caps neglected the surge of the rupee. Investors are worried that rising currency will lower profit margin. Wipro gained 1.3% to Rs 563 and TCS rose 1.5% to Rs 1,240. Refinery stocks also advanced. HPCL rose 3.6% to Rs 271.85, Indian Oil Corporation gained 4.3% to Rs 431 and BPCL advanced 2.9% to Rs 338.10. Hindustan Lever and TCS surged over 1.5% each to Rs 215 and Rs 1,240, respectively.

Decliners

Tata Steel led the decliners, dipping nearly 2% to Rs 560. Satyam declined 1.3 to Rs 460, while ONGC also lost 1.3% to Rs 960 on profit-taking. ICICI Bank shed 0.5% to Rs 957 as 3.4 lakh shares were traded on BSE.

Index heavy Reliance Industries dropped 0.2% to Rs 1,599. Reliance had gained 1.5% in early trade, to a record high of Rs 1,624.80. Reliance unveils fourth-quarter results today. Analysts expect between 2.8% to 9.9% growth in net profit in, between Rs 2,571.30 crore and Rs 2,749.50 crore, compared to Rs 2,502 crore a year earlier.


6:30AM European markets rise Thursday on strong earnings reports

European markets were higher on Thursday. The German DAX Xetra 30 index rose over the 7,400 level, up 0.8% at 7,401.89, and the French CAC-40 index was up 0.4% at 5,971.88, while the U.K. FTSE 100 index gained 0.6% at 6,498.10. National benchmarks rose in all of the 17 western European markets that were open.

Advancers

ABB led the advancers, up 5.8% in Switzerland after the Swiss-Swedish engineering firm, announced its first-quarter profit more than doubled to a stronger-than-forecast $537 million from $204 million, with revenue up 21% to $6.21 billion and orders up 26% to $8.64 billion.