Profit taking trims early gains

The northbound trend remained intact for the sixth consecutive session, with the market witnessing volatile moves and swinging 129 points in intra-day trades. The Sensex failed to hold on to its early gains and closed off its highs amid profit taking towards the close. Riding on the back of yesterday's buoyant close and optimism in several international markets, the Sensex resumed 32 points higher at 13501 and advanced sharply on sustained buying support to move above 13550 and touch a new intra-day high of 13588. After remaining above 13500 during the first half of the trading session, the Sensex witnessed profit taking and slipped below 13500 to touch the day's low of 13459, 10 points below its last close. However, the index ended the session with steady gains of 37 points at 13506, while the Nifty gained one point to close at 3877.

Among the gainers, ACC surged 6.65% at Rs1,087, HDFC Bank soared 6.26% at Rs1,145, SBI jumped 3.56% at Rs1,220, Satyam rose 2.53% at Rs438, HDFC advanced 1.63% at Rs1,556, Gujarat Ambuja added 1.20% at Rs139 and Wipro gained 1.17% at Rs553. NTPC, ICICI Bank, Grasim, L&T and RIL ended the day in positive territory. However, Ranbaxy dropped 1.51% at Rs397, Infosys fell 1.31% at Rs2,194, ONGC lost 1.19% at Rs870, Maruti shed 1.18% at Rs894, Reliance Communication slipped 1.18% at Rs397, Tata Motors was down 1.17% at Rs814, Hindalco dropped 1.10% at Rs176 and Hero Honda closed weaker by 1.05% at Rs706. TCS, Tata Steel, Bajaj Auto, Dr Reddy's, REL, ITC, BHEL, Bharti Airtel, HLL and Cipla ended the day in negative territory.

The market breadth was negative, with the losers outpacing the gainers in the ratio of 1:0.65. Of the 2,610 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,003 stocks advanced, 1,536 stocks declined and 71 stocks ended unchanged. Baring the Bankex, the PSU index and the CG index the remaining sectoral indices ended with marginal losses. The BSE Bankex gained 2.16% at 7212. The BSE PSU index and the BSE CG index were up with marginal gains.

Banking stocks were in the limelight once again. Most of the Bankex stocks ended with steady gains, with HDFC Bank being the major gainer with gains of 6.26% at Rs1,145. Federal Bank advanced 4.19% at Rs223, Indian Overseas Bank added 3.67% at Rs120, UTI Bank surged 3.61% at Rs484, SBI gained 3.56% at Rs1,220 and Bank of India was up 3.36% at Rs192. Union Bank of India, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Andhra Bank and Punjab National Bank gained 1-2% each. ICICI Bank and Canara Bank also ended the day in positive territory. However Karnataka Bank dropped 1.55% at Rs114 while Kotak Mahindra Bank was down 0.84% at Rs399. Allahabad Bank, Bank of Baroda, Vijaya Bank and Centurion Bank of Punjab ended the day in negative territory.

Over 5.16 crore Gujarat Ambuja Cements shares changed hands on the BSE followed by IDFC (1.10 crore shares), Silverline Technologies (67.25 lakh shares), IFCI (48.44 lakh shares) and Nandan Exim (40.18 lakh shares).

Value-wise Gujarat Ambuja Cements registered a turnover of Rs708.24 crore on the BSE followed by Tech Mahindra (Rs306.14 crore), Mahindra Gesco (Rs299.29 crore), Hindustan Zinc (Rs192.05 crore) and ACC (Rs175.83 crore).