Indian Stocks Recover To End In Green; Rupee Grows Stronger

Bombay Stock Exchange's benchmark Sensex and NSE's Nifty opened on a negative note and continued in the red in the morning session Monday, weighed down by a slump in the FMCG and consumer durable shares. However, the Sensex gradually recovered from the lows of the day toward the end of the afternoon session on strong oil and gas shares and closed on a positive note.

The Sensex ended at 15,988.40, up 23.24 points, or 0.15 percent, and the NSE Nifty at 4848.15, up 6.55 points, or 0.14 percent, up from the previous day's closing.

The BSE Sensex, following the weak global cues, dropped to a low of 15,748.98 and a high of 15,953.05 Monday. In the morning session, it had dropped over 200 points from its previous close, while Nifty touched a low of 4,770.35.

The global markets also traded negative following poor U.S. jobs data and reports of a slowdown in the Chinese manufacturing sector. A weaker-than-expected jobs data led to a sell-off in Wall Street. Asian markets also registered losses with Tokyo Topix reaching a 28-year-low of 693.35.

The CNX Midcap Index closed down by 0.1 percent, while the BSE Smallcap Index closed down at 0.2 percent. The market breadth was negative with advances at 637 against declines of 790 on the NSE.

FMCG and consumer durable shares were the worst hit, down by nearly 2 percent, while oil and gas, auto and banking shares traded in the green.

Top gainers in BSE were ONGC (3.13 percent), Larsen & Toubro (1.97 percent), Reliance Industries (1.13 percent), ICICI Bank (1.10 percent), State Bank of India (0.99 percent), Tata Motors (0.98 percent) and Tata Steel (0.82 percent).

Top Sensex losers include GAIL (3.32 percent), Bharti Airtel (2.31 percent), Tata Power (1.84 percent), DLF (2.22 percent), Hindustan Unilever (2.16 percent) and Jindal (2.72 percent). DLF, which traded in the red, recovered its losses in the post-noon session.

The top Nifty losers were Cairn India (3.82 percent), Jindal Steel (3.20 percent), State Bank of India (2.57 percent) and Dr. Reddys Labs (1.69 percent).

Bajaj Auto dipped 3 percent following a weaker-than-expected quarter results.

Hindalco Industries (2.49 percent), Hero MotoCorp (0.62 percent) and BPCL (0.49 percent) registered gains.

Rupee and Oil

The rupee strengthened against the dollar with a strong opening at 55.50 against the dollar and closed at 55.40 a dollar Monday.

Brent crude prices fell more than a dollar and reached $97.36 per barrel Monday.