Bulls take charge on D-St; Nifty nears 9000; Tata Motors up 3%

10:33 am Buzzing stock:Shares of Trigyn Technologies was locked at 5 percent upper circuit at Rs 114.85 on Thursday as its subsidiary won a contract from the IT Department of Maryland, US.

Trigyn Technologies, a wholly-owned subsidiary of company, has been awarded a twelve year indefinite quantity fixed price & time & materials, consulting & technical services IT contract by the State of Maryland’s Department of Information Technology.

10:16 am Chanda Kochhar on lending rates: Chanda Kochhar, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of ICICI Bank, said on Wednesday that she does not expect lending rates to fall further anytime soon.

“A large part of the lending rates cut has already happened,” Kochhar said an interview to CNBC-TV18. “An immediate cut is unlikely. We will have to watch the Reserve Bank of India and see how much CASA remains [post demonetisation].”

Kochhar said that while she was not surprised that the central bank had left the repo rate unchanged on February 8, the shift in stance from accommodative to neutral had come much earlier than expected.

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Bulls were in control of the market, riding on positive momentum from better GDP data as well as rally in global markets. The Nifty was inching closer to 9000-mark.

The Sensex was up 138.10 points at 29122.59, while the Nifty was up 44.60 points at 8990.40. The market breadth was healthy with 1,371 shares having advanced, 641 shares declining and 87 shares remaining unchanged.

Tata Motors, BHEL and UltraTech Cement were the top gainers on both the indices, while pharma stocks Dr. Reddy’s and Sun Pharma were lagging.

Wockhardt tanked nearly 7 percent intraday on Thursday as investors turned bearish after the company’s US arm received a warning letter from the US drug regulator. The US Food and Drug Administration issued a warning letter to Morton Grove Pharmaceuticals, a stepdown subsidiary of the company in Illinois, US.

Meanwhile, DLF fell 3 percent intraday as investors booked profits in the stock, following developments around stake sale. The real estate major’s audit committee confirmed about its talks with GIC for selling 40 percent stake in its rental arm DLF Cyber City Developers.

Markets in US and Europe closed higher, following US President Donald Trump’s speech. Asian markets too rallied, tracking gains from the US. The Nikkei gained over a percent on Thursday.