Sensex gains 69 points

A day after the Sensex gained over 160 points on sustained all-round buying, the market witnessed a range-bound trend during intra-day trades. The market opened marginally above yesterday's close, but soon eased on selling pressure in several front-line stocks and touched an intra-day low of 12712. However, buying at lower levels in select stocks lifted the index into positive territory. The mood was cautious, as the Sensex remained subdued in the afternoon. The inflation numbers came in a little higher than expected, although the inflation declined to 6.39% in the week ended March 24 as compared to 6.46% in the previous week. A smart bounce back and buoyancy in heavyweight, metal and banking stocks towards the close saw the index surge to an intra-day high of 12899. The Sensex finally ended the session with gains of 69 points at 12856, while the Nifty added 19 points to close at 3752.

The breadth of the market was overwhelmingly positive. Of the 2,578 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,651 stocks advanced, 856 stocks declined and 71 stocks ended unchanged. Except the BSE Oil & Gas Index the remaining sectoral indices closed higher. The BSE Metal Index rose 3.07% at 8624 followed by the BSE Bankex (up 1.89% at 6372) and the BSE CD Index (up 0.82% at 3604).

Most of the Sensex stocks finished with gains. Tata Steel soared 6.16% at Rs465, Reliance Energy jumped 2.73% at Rs501, Grasim surged 2.38% at Rs2,113, ICICI Bank added 2.19% at Rs839, HDFC advanced 2.18% at Rs1,530, HDFC Bank gained 1.87% at Rs943, Cipla advanced 1.40% at Rs232, Maruti Udyog added 1.38% at Rs756 and Hindalco was up 1.34% at Rs132. However, Dr Reddy's shed 2.19% at Rs729, Hero Honda was down 1.78% at Rs632 and NTPC fell 1.37% at 159. Reliance Industries, ITC, ONGC, TCS, Bharti Airtel, L&T and Bajaj Auto closed with marginal losses.

Steel stocks were in the limelight. Among the metal stocks JSW Steel surged 4.91% at Rs497, Hindustan Zinc spurted 4.70% at Rs648, Jindal Steel jumped 3.87% at Rs2,386, Jindal Stainless added 2.91% at Rs122, SAIL gained 2.23% at Rs115 and Jindal Saw was up 1.12% at Rs470.

Over 4.25 crore IFCI shares changed hands on the BSE followed by India Bulls Retail (66.43 lakh shares), Balrampur Chini (39.15 lakh shares), NTPC (28.92 lakh shares) and Tata Steel (24.83 lakh shares).

Tata Steel registered a turnover of Rs114 crore on the BSE followed by Reliance Communication (Rs61 crore), Reliance Capital (Rs48 crore), Reliance Industries (Rs47 crore) and SBI (Rs47 crore).