Banking stocks shine in lacklustre market

he market exhibited a listless trend, with the Sensex managing to end the day with small gains on selective buying. The day belonged to the banking stocks that shrugged off the sluggish trend and rallied sharply, with the BSE Bankex notching up gains of 2.86% to close at 7060. The benchmark BSE Sensex moved past 13500 after a positive opening at 13476 before profit taking dragged it to 13391 in early trades. Recouping lost ground, the Sensex witnessed strong buying in the afternoon and touched a new intra-day high of 13506. However, lack of further movement and some profit booking saw the Sensex end the session at 13469, up 44 points for the day. The Nifty added ten points to close at 3876.

Among the gainers, SBI surged 4.56% at Rs1,178, ICICI Bank soared 2.77% at Rs881, Bharti Airtel jumped 1.52% at Rs578.60, Gujarat Ambuja Cements rose 1.48% at Rs137, HDFC Bank advanced 1.41% at Rs1,077, Grasim added 1.28% at Rs2,708 and ACC moved up by 1.25% at Rs1,020. ITC, Hero Honda, Infosys, Reliance Communication, Ranbaxy, BHEL, Bajaj Auto, Wipro, L&T and ONGC ended the day in positive territory. However, HLL dropped 1.86% at Rs243, REL fell 1.80% at Rs525, Dr Reddy's lost 1.44% at Rs780, Reliance Industries shed 1.23% at Rs1,262, HDFC slumped 1.19% at Rs1,531, Tata Steel was down 1.04% at Rs486, NTPC dropped 1.03% at Rs134 and Satyam slipped 1% at Rs427. TCS, Tata Motors, Hindalco, Cipla and Maruti ended the day in negative territory.

The market breadth was negative, with the losers outpacing the gainers in the ratio of 1:0.69. Of the 2,606 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,034 stocks advanced, 1,508 stocks declined and 64 stocks ended unchanged. Among the sectoral indices the BSE Bankex was the major gainer and soared 2.86% at 7060 followed by the BSE PSU index (up 0.81% at 6138).

Banking stocks were in the limelight and rose sharply. Bank of India soared 7.54% at Rs186, Punjab National Bank advanced 5.85% at Rs546, Kotak Mahindra Bank rose 5.22% at Rs402, SBI surged 4.56% at Rs1,178, Indian Overseas Bank added 4.56% at Rs116, Bank of Baroda added 4.49% at Rs271 and Oriental Bank of Commerce gained 4.22% at Rs251. Andhra Bank, Union Bank of India, Vijaya Bank, ICICI Bank, Canara Bank, Karnataka Bank and Allahabad Bank gained 2-3% each. HDFC Bank and Federal Bank were up 1% each. However Centurion Bank of Punjab dropped 2.86% at Rs29 while UTI Bank was down 1.45% at Rs467.

Over 1.06 crore GV Films shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Hanung Toys (60.72 lakh shares), Silverline Technologies (38.82 lakh shares), Mahindra Gesco (35.19 lakh shares) and OCL India (32.21 lakh shares).

Value-wise Mahindra Gesco registered a turnover of Rs314.29 crore on the BSE followed by Hindustan Zinc (Rs187.71 crore), Punj Lloyd (Rs181.35 crore), Tech Mahindra (Rs175.86 crore) and Glenmark Pharma (Rs162.82 crore).