Sensex posts modest gains

The market returned to stability in the afternoon and gradually picked up momentum on healthy buying in consumer durables, capital goods and oil stocks but slipped into the red on profit booking towards the close. The Sensex opened on a cautious note at 14479, down nine points, tracing weak Asian markets. The market remained choppy thereafter but with a positive bias. It moved gradually up on sustained buying in front-line stocks to touch the day's high of 14560. However, a strong bout of selling thereafter saw the market enter into the red towards the close but buying at lower levels helped the Sensex to pare some of the losses and enter into positive territory again. The Sensex finally closed at 14501, up 13 points, while the Nifty ended the session at 4286, up 26 points.

The broader market, however, continued to remain in the green. Of the 2,692 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,493 stocks advanced, 1,118 stocks declined and 81 stocks ended unchanged. Most of the sectoral indices ended in the green. The BSE CD was the biggest gainer and moved up by 2.71% at 4164 followed by the BSE CG index (up 1.01% at 11950) and the BSE PSU index (up 0.75% at 6789). However, the BSE Bankex index dropped 0.36% at 7802 and the BSE IT index was down 0.25% at 4800.

Among the laggards Ranbaxy was down 2.36% at Rs348, HDFC declined by 1.27% at Rs1,880, Wipro shed 1.25% at Rs509 and ACC dropped 1.17% at Rs846. However, select heavyweights attracted buying support. ONGC surged 2.11% at Rs936, Bharti Airtel rose 2.01% at Rs850, Grasim jumped 1.44% at Rs2,496, BHEL added 1.40% at Rs1,471 and Tata Motors moved up by 1.07% at Rs684.

Consumer durable stocks, however, were in the limelight. Titan Industries surged 8.78% at Rs1,279, Timex Watches jumped 5% at Rs26, Samtel Color soared 4.68% at Rs16 and Goldiam International gained 3.13% at Rs97. Llyod Electric, Shrenuj & Company, Nilkamal were up over 1% each.

Over 1.43 crore Reliance Petroleum shares changed hands on the BSE followed by IFCI (1.03 crore shares), GV Films (92.60 lakh shares), IKF Technologies (83.25 lakh shares) and Hindalco (51.65 lakh shares).

Time Technologies topped the value list with a turnover of Rs200 crore on the BSE followed by Indiabulls (Rs189 crore), Indiabulls Real Estate(Rs123 crore), Reliance Petroleum (Rs119 crore) and GMR Infrastructure (Rs103 crore).