Sensex advances for the fourth straight trading session

The market ended with small gain as buying continued at higher levels. Shares from auto, metal and sugar sector witnessed buying interest.

BSE Sensex rose 29.55 points (0.21%) to 13874.33, which is an all time closing high. The Sensex opened with an upward gap at 13846.71 as buying continued following 148 point surge on Friday (1 December) and moved to an all time high of 13912.54. It hit a low of 13828.90.

The S&P CNX Nifty rose 3.40 points (0.09%) to 4001, an all time closing high. It had advanced to an all time high of 4015.25 in intra-day trade.

The total turnover on BSE amounted to Rs 4808 crore boosted by two block deals of 20.09 lakh shares each struck in ICICI Bank counter in the institutional segment at an average rate of Rs 884 per share.

The Sensex has gained 242.83 points or 1.79% in the past four days from 13601.95 on 28 November. The barometer index is up 47.82% for the calendar year 2006 on the back of sustained inflow from FIIs, backed by robust corporate earnings.

Market breadth was strong today. 1462 shares advanced on BSE as compared to 1090 that declined. 81 shares remained unchanged. The BSE Small-Cap index rose 58.10 points or 0.9% to 6,776.84 while the BSE Mid-Cap index gained 43.53 points or 0.75% to 5,818.95

Among the Sensex pack, 16 advanced while the rest declined.

Tata Motors was the top gainer, up 3.64% to Rs 873.55 on 7.02 lakh shares. It had surged to an intra-day high of Rs 887.20. Tata Motors’ vehicle sales rose 43% in November to 49,061 units compared with the same month a year ago. Sales of commercial vehicles rose 46 percent to 25,793, while sales of cars rose 48% to 19,475, helped by a surge in sales of its Indica model. Exports rose 9.6% to 3,793 units. Its ADR surged 5% on Friday on NYSE.

Reliance Energy (REL) (up 3.30% to Rs 558), NTPC (up 2.67% to Rs 152) and Bhel (up 2.53% to Rs 2584) were the other gainers.

Cement maker ACC rose 3.25% to Rs 1169 as investor’s bet that the recent cut in diesel and petrol prices will bring down transportation costs for cement firms. The company reported 2.7% growth in cement dispatches for November 2006 to 1.52 million tonne. Dispatches in the 11-months period January-November 2006 rose nearly 7% to 16.98 million tonne.

L&T gained 3.24% to Rs 1423.55 on reports that the company is planning to foray into arms and ammunition to widen its defense equipment portfolio. The company will initially manufacture small arms and later graduate to ammunition, including explosives. L& T is also in talks with two European companies for a technological tie-up in this field.

Index heavyweight Reliance Industries rose 0.24% to Rs 1264 on 5.62 lakh shares. The company has restarted a fire-damaged hydrotreater unit at its Jamnagar refinery in Gujarat on 1 December. The unit had been shut since a fire on 25 October. Reliance had said in November that no major equipment had been damaged in the fire.

HDFC Bank was the top loser, down 1.84% to Rs 1100 on 2.66 lakh shares of which 2.40 lakh shares came through a block deal which was executed at Rs 1100 per share on BSE at 13:00 IST

Wipro (down 1.77% to Rs 590.25), Hero Honda (down 1.51% to Rs 760) and Satyam Computers (down 1.47% to Rs 460) were the other losers.

Parsvnath Developers was the second highest traded counter on BSE with total turnover of Rs 301.80 crore followed by Era Construction (Rs 129.35 crore) and Unitech (Rs 103.84 crore).

United Breweries advanced 9.40% to Rs 199.05 after a block deal of 10 lakh shares was struck on the counter at Rs 190 per share on BSE by 11:42 IST.

Sugar stocks surged on reports that Indonesia will buy as much as 2,00,000 tonnes of white sugar by March 2007 to ensure supplies to keep a check on prices and control inflation. Indonesian sugar production is expected to reach 2.3 million tonnes this year, which is 7% lower than an initial target. Bajaj Hindustan (up 4.51% to Rs 247), Balrampur Chini Mills (up 9.34% to Rs 89), Bannari Amman Sugars (up 1.56% to Rs 810), Dhampur Sugar Mills (up 12.10% to Rs 95.40), Oudh Sugar Mills (up 8.50% to Rs 103.35), Mawana Sugar (up 5.46% to Rs 56.95), Shree Renuka Sugar (up 6.96% to Rs 532), Sakthi Sugar (up 13.06% to Rs 116) and Triveni Engineering (up 4.43% to Rs 58.90) surged.

Among the side counters, Media Video surged 20% to Rs 50.60 after its board approved spinning off the firm's real estate division.

Mahindra & Mahindra rose 0.42% to Rs 744 after its total automotive sales for November rose 11.5% to 13,600 units. Its tractor sales rose 12.4% to 7,987 units.

Jewellery maker Rajesh Exports jumped 10% to Rs 258.70 after the firm said it had formed an equal joint venture with US-based watch designer Fossil Inc. with an investment of Rs 25 crore to make watches and sell jewellery.

Steel pipe maker Welspun Gujarat Stahl Rohren surged 3.15% to Rs 91.65 on high volumes of 60.43 lakh shares after three block deals of 5 lakh shares each were struck on the counter at an average price of Rs 86.60 per share in opening trade on BSE.

Sterlite Industries rose 5.12% to Rs 586.25 after the company said on Monday it has commissioned an aluminium smelter with an annual production capacity of 2,45,000 tonnes.

K Sera Sera Productions jumped 6.35% to Rs 31 after it agreed to buy 80% of Lemon Entertainment, from Lemon's founders. Lemon Entertainment runs Lemon TV channel