Sensex holds ground

Sensex Open:13847 High:13913 Low:13829

The market exhibited volatility in the first half of the trading session. The Sensex opened two points above its last close at 13847 and moved up before a sharp bout of selling saw it slip into the red and touch a low of 13829. Renewed buying in most of the front-line stocks saw the Sensex soar to an intra-day high of 13913 towards the close, up 84 points from the day's low. The Sensex finally ended the trading session with gains of 30 points at 13874 while the Nifty advanced three points to close at 4001.

The breadth of the market was positive. Of the 2,650 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,491 stocks advanced, 1,086 stocks declined and 73 stocks ended unchanged.

Among the prominent index gainers Tata Motors surged 4.31% at Rs879, ACC soared 3.56% at Rs1,173, Larsen & Toubro jumped 3.13% at Rs1,422, Reliance Energy added 2.98% at Rs556, BHEL advanced 2.63% at Rs2,587 and NTPC gained by 1.99% at Rs151. However Satyam Computers shed 1.84% at Rs458, HDFC Bank tumbled 1.79% at Rs1,101, Wipro was down 1.76% at Rs590 and HDFC closed weaker by 1.19% at Rs1,624.

The BSE CG index was the major gainer among the sectoral indices and added 2.17% followed by the BSE CD index, which gained 1.86%. The BSE FMCG index, the BSE HC index and the BSE PSU index notched up marginal gains. However the BSE Bankex, the BSE Teck index, the BSE IT index and the BSE Oil & Gas index ended weak.

Among the capital goods stocks Ingersoll Rand gained 5.26% at Rs365, Lakshmi Machine Works surged 5% at Rs35,754 and Thermax advanced 3.13% at Rs390. Gammon India, Bharat Electrical, Carborundum Universal and ABB were up 2% each.

ABB at Rs3,840, BNK Capital at Rs62.85, BHEL at Rs2,605.85, SBI at Rs1,378.70, Goodyear India at Rs197.45, Aditya Birla Nuvo at Rs1,190 and GE Capital at Rs154.60 touched new all-time highs on the BSE.

Over 61.03 lakh Parshvanath shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Welspun Gujarat (60.48 lakh shares), Lanco Infratech (23.77 lakh shares) and IDBI (19.07 lakh shares).

Value-wise Parshvanath clocked a turnover of Rs302 crore on the BSE followed by HDFC (Rs73.52 crore), Reliance Industries (Rs71.39 crore) and Lanco Infratech (Rs63.32 crore).