Sensex, Nifty consolidate but Midcap, Smallcap outperform
11:51 am Jio subscriber base:
Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani said his telecom venture Jio has crossed a customer base of 100 million.
“When we started Jio, we set a target for ourselves that we will acquire 100 million customers in shortest time. Even we didn’t imagine that we would do it in months,” Ambani said at the three-day Nasscom leadership forum here.
The company has been providing free 4G service since its soft launch on December 27, 2015 for RIL employees only and later opened it for all customers on September 5, 2016 thus completing over 160 days of its commercial operations.
“We just set ourselves a goal. Aadhaar enabled us to acquire a million customer a day which is unheard of in the industry as a whole,” Ambani said.
Disclosure: Reliance Industries, the parent company of Reliance Jio, owns Network 18 that publishes Moneycontrol.com.
11:27 am Buzzing: IT firm Cyient shares gained 2 percent intraday after its subsidiary signed a joint go-to-market agreement with Italian company during Aero India seminar.
“Italian company ASE S.p.A and Cyient Inc, on February 15, announced a joint go-to-market agreement for joine market development of products in electric power generation arena,” the company said in its filing.
This collaboration will provide full life-cycle services, products and systems to aerospace and defence industry.
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11:00 am Market Check
Benchmark indices continued to consolidate in morning as investors digested quarterly corporate earnings. Now all eyes on assembly elections of five states and GST Council meet later in the week.
The 30-share BSE Sensex was up 29.02 points at 28184.58 and the 50-share BSE Nifty gained 14.25 points at 8738.95 while the broader markets outperformed benchmarks.
The BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices gained half a percent each on positive breadth. About 1376 shares advanced against 877 declining shares on the BSE.
Infosys was the top contributor to Sensex’s gains, up 1.5 percent on hopes of share buyback from the company. TCS today morning announced that it will consider share buyback on February 20.
Sun Pharma was the biggest gainer among Sensex stocks, up 2.7 percent. The company has received tentative approval from the US Food & Drug Administration for Tadalafil tablets that are used to treat erectile dysfunction & arterial hypertension.
Tata Motors shares rebounded 1.8 percent on short covering. The stock fell nearly 14 percent in last two sessions after disappointing set of earnings.
State Bank of India, State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur, State Bank of Mysore and State Bank of Travancore rallied 1-5 percent after Cabinet approved merger.
However, the sell-off in ITC (down 1.7 percent), ICICI Bank (down 1.9 percent) and HDFC (down 0.5 percent) shares restricted market’s upside.
