Markets end higher on firm global cues

Markets continued their winning streak to end nearly 1% on Friday tracking firm global cues.

The Sensex, after touching a high of 18,423 in the morning, slipped to a low of 18,235.

The index finally ended up135 points at 18,289. Nifty crossed the 5,600 mark and finally ended at 5,564 -- up 42 points.

Global markets remained in the green on hopes of Greece getting a bailout package. In Asia, Nikkei added 1.5% to9,384.

Hang Seng and Seoul Composite rose over 1% each in trades.

Meanwhile, Greek officials say they have done everything asked of them for euro zone finance ministers to sign off on the 130 billion euro rescue package on Monday -- a month before Athens needs the money to make 14.5 billion euros of debt repayments due on March 20 or go bankrupt.

Foreign Institutional Investors bought shares worth Rs 184 crore on Thursday, according to provisional data available with Sebi.

Meanwhile, the rupee nudged higher in trades as the prospect for capital inflows got a boost from stronger US economic data and indications for a Greece bailout.

Most of the sectoral indices remained in the green with the BSE power index jumping 3% to 2,363. BSE consumer durables index was the top gainer with over 4% gains.

Capital goods and IT shares held on to gains.

However, BSE auto index fell 0.5% as investors booked profits after recent gains. Metal index was marginally in red.

BHEL was the biggest gainer and was up over 6.5% at Rs 303. Mahindra & Mahindra added 3.2%, followed by SBI, Sterlite and NTPC.

Meanwhile, Hero MotoCorp and HDFC were the key draggers. Hero MotoCorp was down 4% in trades. Other losers included Gail India, Maruti Suzuki and Hindalco.

JP Morgan downgraded country's wind turbine maker Suzlon Energy to "underweight" from "neutral" and cut its target price on the stock to Rs 20 from Rs 61. Suzlon was down 1.3% at Rs 29.

Shares

of power generation companies extended their rally for the third day in a row after the Prime Minister has approved suggestions made by the Secretary level Committee for solving the issue of coal deficit faced by power sector.

Most of the frontline power stocks such as BHEL, Adani Power, Reliance Power, Tata Power. Lanco Infratech, Torrent Power and JSW Energy rallied 1-7% each.

Market heavyweight, Reliance Industries ended 0.7% higher at Rs 818.

"Reliance Industries (RIL) expects the output from the D6 field in the Krishna-Godavari (KG) basin would slide to about 22.6 mcmd (million cubic metres per day) by 2013-14.

"The company has projected a production of 27.6 mcmd from the block in 2012-13 from existing 34.5 mcmd.

"This shows that the outlook regarding the gas production is very uncertain and this declining trend is a major concern.

"We have been maintaining a cautious stance on the same from a long time now.

"We maintain one-year target of Rs 650 for the stock," said A K Prabhakar, Senior Vice President Equity Research, Anand Rathi.

Telecom stocks gained after the government unveiled new telecom policies on Wednesday. Reliance Communications added 1% to Rs 104.

Cement stocks were also in green.

Ambuja Cement was up 1.6%. ACC jumped 1.3%. Jaiprakash Associates, however, erased morning gains and ended down 0.6%.

Thomas Cook (India) tumbled 3.7% as investors booked profits.

The stock had soared to a high of Rs 66 this morning on doubling net profit at Rs 5.04 crore for the quarter ended December 2011, compared to Rs 1.51 crore for the same quarter of the previous fiscal.

Revenues grew 31% at Rs 87.30 crore on year-on-year basis.