Sensex gains amid volatility

The Sensex began the trading session above the 13000 mark at 13018, up 38 points, and moved up in early trades on buying in several heavyweights to touch an early high of 13070. However, the Sensex eased on profit booking in oil & metal stocks and touched an intra-day low of 12984. The market moved up on reports that the inflation was unchanged for the third week in a row at 6.46%. The Sensex surged and touched an intra-day high of 13112 on substantial buying in pharma, fast moving consumer goods, metal and auto stocks. The Sensex settled at 13072, up 92 points. The Nifty ended the session at 3822, up 23 points.

The breadth of the market was positive. Of the 2,610 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,676 stocks advanced, 864 stocks declined and 70 stocks ended unchanged. Among the sectoral indices the BSE HC Index advanced 1.89% at 3649 followed by the BSE Metal Index (up 1.71% at 8488), the BSE FMCG Index (up 1.57% at 1739) and the BSE Auto Index (up 1.36% at 4869).

Most of the heavyweights ended in positive territory. Dr Reddy's rose 3.13% at Rs728, NTPC advanced 3.06% at Rs150, ITC climbed 2.49% at Rs150, Ranbaxy surged 2.13% at Rs353, Gujarat Ambuja gained 2.01% at Rs107, Tata Steel added 1.88% at Rs450, Satyam Computers jumped 1.86% at Rs470, Grasim advanced 1.78% at Rs2,091, Tata Motors added 1.77% at Rs728 and HDFC Bank was up 1.75% at Rs949. Among the laggards Wipro shed 1.27% at Rs558 and TCS slipped 1.27% at Rs1,231. HDFC, BHEL, ICICI Bank, Cipla and ACC ended with marginal losses.

Pharma stocks were in the limelight. Lupin soared 4.82% at Rs606, Aurobindo Pharma advanced 4.68% at Rs679, Sun Pharma added 4.08% at Rs1,059 and Matrix Labs gained 3.36% at Rs175. Biocon, Cadila, Wockhardt and Glaxo gained 2-3% each.

Over 32.16 lakh Idea Cellular shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Reliance Petro (23.53 lakh shares), SAIL (20.27 lakh shares), HLL (19 lakh shares) and ITC (17.64 lakh shares).

Value-wise Reliance Industries registered a turnover of Rs77 crore on the BSE followed by ICICI Bank (Rs50 crore), Tata Steel (Rs49 crore), Bajaj Auto (Rs46 crore) and Infosys (Rs43 crore).