Sensex up 158 pts, Nifty ends above 7950 on S&P upgrade

03:30 pm Market closing: 

S&P boosted investor sentiment which spiked the market in last hour of trade before wrapping up for the weekend. The Nifty ended at 7968.85, up 57.00 points while the Sensex was up 157.96 points at 26626.32. About 1585 shares advanced, 1376 shares declined, and 89 shares were unchanged.

 03:10 pm Global markets: The dollar held near a four-year high against a basket of currencies on Friday, fuelled by the biggest yield advantage over the euro in nearly 15 years as the Federal Reserve contemplates hiking interest rates.

European equities fell to trade close to a one-month low as a sharp sell-off in U.S. and Asian markets prompted caution among investors on the last trading day of the week. 

03:00 pm Market check: The market has surged on positive sentiment. The Sensex is up 178.14 points at 26646.50 and the Nifty is up 60.80 points at 7972.65. About 1392 shares have advanced, 1485 shares declined, and 89 shares are unchanged. Sun Pharma, Hindalco, Axis Bank, Tata Steel and M&M are top gainers in the Sensex. Among the losers are Dr Reddy's Labs, GAIL, HDFC, Hero and Maruti. 

02:42 pm Upgrade: Global rating agency Standard & Poor's (S&P) has upgraded India's credit outlook to stable from negative. 

S&P said that CAD has improved in recent months post gold import curbs. The rating agency sees India's FY15 CAD widening from low of 1.8 percent of GDP. S&P earlier rated India as 'BBB-', the lowest in the investment grade, with a negative outlook. Moody's assigns a 'Baa3' rating on India, with a stable outlook. Fitch has affirmed India's long-term foreign and local currency issuer default rating (IDR) at 'BBB-' with stable outlook, indicating low default risk. 

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Equity benchmarks continued to be rangebound in afternoon trade with the Sensex rising 32.52 points to 26500.88 and the Nifty advancing 12.25 points to 7924.10. 

About 1162 shares have advanced, 1638 shares declined, and 85 shares are unchanged. 

Shares of Sun Pharma and Hindalco Industries topped the buying list, up 4-5 percent followed by HDFC Bank, ONGC, L&T, Axis Bank, M&M, SBI, Tata Steel and NTPC with 1-3 percent upside.

However, HDFC, ICICI Bank and Gail India were top losers, down over 2 percent. ICICI Bank, TCS, HUL, Hero Motocorp and Maruti fell 1-1.9 percent.

Petronet LNG, Godrej Industries, SBI, Sun Pharma, Reliance Industries, ICICI Bank, Infosys and Tata Motors were most active shares.

In the midcap space, Indiabulls Real, City Union Bank, Bhushan Steel, IOB and Kaveri Seed rallied 4-7 percent while IIFL Holdings, CRISIL, JK Cement, Rajesh Exports and Trinity Trade lost 5-9 percent.

Among smallcaps, Mangalore Chemical, Visagar Polytex, UB Holdings, Prakash Industries and Matra Kaushal were up 7-20 percent whereas SV Global Mill, Usha Martin, Tata Sponge, Phoenix Lamps and Indian Metals slipped 6-10 percent. More information please visit this site www.bigprofitbuzz.com