The Hindu Business Line : Weekly Market round-up

The Markets opened the week on a flat note at 17,251.56 on Monday. During the course of the week Fed's decision to slash interest rates by 25 basis points, and pause on future rate cuts sent the US markets on a roller-coaster ride, but finally bulls gained the upper hand.

Indian markets followed the golbal cues, shrugged off the inflation impact and the Sensex closed the week on a strong note with a gain of 474.14 points to finish at 17,600.12.

The Stock Lending and Borrowing Scheme again met with a muted response with only 3 trades.

The good numbers from brokerage companies such as Indiabulls Securities, and India Infoline defied the analysts pessimistic outlook. The stocks fared well in the bourses.

Hindustan Unilever Ltd saw a 3 per cent dip in its net profit, but with strong 19.1 per cent sales growth, it touched Rs 3,793.94 crore during the quarter, against Rs 3,184.32 crore in the year-ago period. The stock showed no signs of weakness.

The RBI hiked CRR by 25 basis points to suck out Rs 9,000 crore from the system to contain inflation, and kept all its key rates unchanged. This decision enthused the markets, and the rate sensitive sectors such as realty, banks, and auto stocks bounced back strongly.

The industry friendly measures from the RBI and those announced by the Finance Minister sent the Sensex and the Nifty rising to their two month highs to top the list of index gainers globally.

HDFC came out with a 40 per cent rise in its net profit for the fourth quarter buoyed by higher interest margin and a one-time gain from sale of shares in a subsidiary. The shares ended the week at Rs 2,774.

Inflation galloped to a 42-month high of 7.57 per cent for the week ended April 19 as compared to 7.33 per cent a week ago mainly on account of higher prices of food articles and some manufactured products.

State Bank of India's excellent numbers cheered the markets and the stock was up Rs 45 or 2.55 per cent to finish at Rs 1,822 on the BSE.

Compiled by B.L. Sudarsan
Podcast by A Srirengarajan and S.Vasudevan

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