Markets close higher for fifth straight session

Markets gained for the fifth straight session on Tuesday, amid firm global cues, with FMCG majors ITC and Hindustan Unilever leading the gains.

For the day, the Sensex gained 0.8% or 166 points to close at 20,325 and the Nifty gained nearly 0.8% or 46 points to end today's session at 6,078.

The broader markets had a flat session with the smallcap index closing with a negative bias at 5,682 and the midcap index edged higher by 0.1% to end at 5,999.

The rupee gave up all gains to trade flat for the day at 59.72 as there are no fresh dollar inflows into the market, traders say.

Earlier in the day the Sensex had touched a high of 20,351. The gains were on the back of significant buying witnessed in rate-sensitive shares after the central bank once again tightened gold import duty to squeeze current account deficit.

The Reserve Bank of India on Monday asked all nominated banks and agencies to export at least one-fifth of every lot of imported gold in all forms, and locally make it available only for jewellers.

The central bank said banks need to retain 20% of the imported gold in customs bonded warehouses, and will only be able to further import gold after exporting at least 75% of the gold from those warehouses.

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Global Markets

World shares pushed up towards five-year highs on Tuesday helped by China's plans for avoiding a hard landing in its slowing economy, while gold took a breather after its biggest one-day gain in more than a year.

Local media in China reported that the government is looking to increase investment in railway projects as it aims to ensure annual economic growth does not sink below 7%.

The reports saw China shares post their best day in two weeks, driving MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan up 1.3% to its highest since early June.

European shares added to their recent gains on hopes that China's plan would boost demand for construction materials, climbing 0.4% in early trade with the focus expected to switch to corporate earnings reports.

An upgraded economic outlook from Japan's government added to the better tone in the markets, lifting Tokyo's Nikkei 0.8%, sending the MSCI world equity index up 0.2% to within touching distance of the five-year high hit at the end of May.

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Sectors & Stocks

All the sectoral indices closed in the green with Consumer Durables index leading gains, up nearly 4%. The other gainers were FMCG, Realty, Bankex, PSU, Metal, Oil & Gas and Power indices gaining 0.5-1.5%.

The top gainers for the day among the Sensex-30 were Hindustan Unilever, BHEL,Mahindra & Mahindra, SBI, Sterlite, ITC and Dr Reddys Lab gaining 2-3%.

ICICI Bank, ONGC, Tata Power,Infosys and Hindalco up 0.8-1.55 were the other notable gainers.

Among the ones in the red were Wipro and Bharti Airtel losing 2% each followed by Coal India, Cipla, Jindal Steel, Bajaj Auto,Hero MotoCorp,Sun Pharma and HDFC down 0.2-0.6%.

In individual names, Asian Paints dipped nearly 3% at Rs 4,939, extending its previous day’s 2% fall, after reporting a 4.5% year-on-year drop in consolidated net profit at Rs 283 crore for the quarter ended June 30, 2013 due to higher other expenditure and staff cost.

Reliance Infrastructure has moved higher by 2.5% to Rs 396 after the company through its special purpose vehicle said it has started toll collection for its Rs 556 crore road project from Jaipur to Reengus in Rajasthan in Rajasthan.

Manappuram Finance was locked in upper circuit for fourth consecutive day, up 5% at Rs 14.19 on BSE after Baring Private Equity Partners India (Baring PE India) increased its holdings in the company to 11.56% through open market purchases.

Fresenius Kabi Oncology rallied 20% to Rs 132 after the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has allowed the company to delist its shares from the Indian stock market.

Bayer CropScience plunged 8.5% to Rs 1,598 after agrochemicals firm has fixed share buyback price at Rs 1,580 per share through tender offer. The proposed buyback is 10% discount to Monday’s closing price of Rs 1,753 on NSE.

The market breadth was neutral with 1,149 advances as compared to the 1,151 declines on the BSE.