Oct 7-Top Movers :: Business Line

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The UPA Government’s policy push continued in the last week too. The Cabinet approved an increase in FDI limit in the insurance sector from 26 per cent to 49 per cent. It also approved FDI in the pension sector. The markets cheered these moves. But Parliament sanction is pending.

On Friday, a flash crash due to erroneous orders by brokerage Emkay Global saw the Nifty index plunge 900 points. Trading was also disrupted for 15 minutes. But the Nifty later recovered and ended lower by around 41 points than the previous day.

Over the last week, the benchmark indices gained a little. The Nifty was up 0.77 per cent while Sensex ended 0.94 per cent higher. Among sectoral indices, the BSE Realty gained the most, up 5.5 per cent for the week.

The stocks of brokerage firms too gained on higher trading volumes in the market. Combined trading volume on the NSE and the BSE averaged 988 million shares in September 2012 compared with 778 million shares in the previous month. Edelweiss Financial Services was the top gainer in this group, gaining over 25 per cent during the week. India Infoline, Motilal Oswal and Reliance Capital also gained 14 per cent, 9.25 per cent and 5.7 per cent respectively.

Reliance Capital bought 2.84 million shares of Indiabulls Real Estate. The latter’s stock was up 16 per cent for the week.

The stock of commodity exchange MCX was up 4.1 per cent for the week as the Cabinet cleared the Forward Contracts Regulation Amendment Bill. The Bill envisages enhancing the forward market regulator’s powers and will support introduction of new products such as commodity options.

Engineering and construction major L&T rose 3.3 per cent for the week on securing new orders worth Rs 1,439 crore for the construction segment.

The stock of FMCG company Bajaj Corp gained 2.7 per cent on strong results. The company’s net profit in the September quarter grew over 33 per cent jump over the same period last year.

India’s largest car maker Maruti Suzuki announced price hikes for its four wheelers in the light of the rise in raw material costs and currency depreciation. The hikes range from Rs 2,400 to Rs 5,250. The stock gained 2.7 for the week.

Reliance Industries (RIL) rose 2.4 per cent for the week on signing a 15-year heavy crude oil supply contract with the Venezuelan state-run oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA). PDVSA will supply between 300,000 and 400,000 barrels a day of Venezuelan heavy crude oil to RIL’s two refineries in Jamnagar.

The woes of debt-laden Kingfisher Airlines worsened as the company suspended operations following a strike by employees over non-payment of wages. The company announced that flight operations may not resume before October 12. The stock was down 17.8 per cent for the week.

England-based energy major BG Group agreed to sell its majority stake in India’s biggest private sector city gas distributor Gujarat Gas Co for $470 million. The deal is expected to be completed in the first half of 2013. The deal was done at a 12 per cent discount to the current price. The stock was down 10.5 per cent for the week.

India’s second largest two-wheeler maker Bajaj Auto lost 4.3 per cent for the week. The company reported a 14 per cent decline in its two wheeler sales for September compared to the corresponding month last year.

The stock of home loan lending major HDFC was down 3.1 per cent for the week as private equity firm Carlyle Group sold its entire holding of 5.7 crore shares (3.7 per cent stake) in the company.