gopalakrishna

Indian shares closed little changed on Monday on mixed Asian cues and a slight rise in crude futures as investors stayed cautious ahead of the central bank's quarterly credit review on Tuesday.

Oil prices rose on Monday as rebels said they had sabotaged two pipelines in Nigeria, a major crude exporter. In London morning trade, New York's main contract, light sweet crude for September delivery, advanced 92 cents to $124.18 a barrel.

India's benchmark 30-share Sensex of the Bombay Stock Exchange closed up 74.17 points or 0.52 percent at 14,349.11 and the broader 50-share S&P CNX Nifty of the National Stock Exchange gained 20.25 points or 0.47 percent to close at 4,332.10.

Of the 30 constituent stocks of the Sensex 13 advanced and 17 declined. Larsen & Toubro Ltd., India's biggest engineering and construction company, led gainers, rising nearly 98 rupees or 3.73 percent to 2,723.55 after it said first-quarter earnings grew 33 percent.

India's biggest oil and gas explorer Oil & Natural Gas Corp. Ltd. (ONGC), which reported its April-June earnings after market hours on Monday, climbed three percent to 1,012.50 rupees and India's biggest property developer DLF Ltd. rose 1.77 percent to 499.45 rupees.

Reliance Industries Ltd. edged up nearly 1.5 percent to 2,179.10 rupees and the largest private lender ICICI Bank Ltd. closed a percent higher at 663.45 rupees.

Sterlite Industries Ltd., which said first-quarter earnings edged up 0.7 percent on a fall in revenues, led declines, falling 3.47 percent to 582.25 rupees. Aluminium producer Hindalco Industries Ltd. shed 2.21 percent to 146.15 rupees after the company posted about 16.5 percent growth in its first-quarter net profit. The company, however, said the steep depreciation of the rupee against the U.S. dollar affected the copper business by an estimated 1.52 billion rupees for the quarter.

Software bellwether Infosys Technologies Ltd. slipped 0.74 percent to 1,538.90 rupees and private lender HDFC Bank Ltd. was unchanged at 1,127.05 rupees after it said first-quarter net rose more than 44 percent.

On the broader market 1,767 advances overwhelmed 848 declines on a volume of 278.8 million shares.

Among Nifty stocks, 26 advanced and 24 declined. Biggest private utility Tata Power Co. Ltd. led gainers, rising 4.25 percent to 1,052.85 rupees while ABB Ltd. fell the most, slipping 5.09 percent to 791.70 rupees.

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