Sensex recovers on positive global cues

After an initial hiccup the recovery in Asian markets helped the Sensex to trim its early losses and end the session with gains of 39 points. The market witnessed correction in the morning trades on the back of mixed global cues and fears of overvaluation. The market resumed with a negative gap of 18 points at 14514. The selling pressure in front-line stocks and fast moving consumer goods dragged the index to its day's low of 14433 by mid-morning trades. The firm global cues and sustained buying in select heavyweights, banking and technology stocks helped the Sensex to enter into positive territory. Some profit booking at higher levels and lack of buying interest, however, kept the index range-bound but with a positive bias. The Sensex finally closed the session with gains of 39 points at 14535. The Nifty ended the session by adding 18 points at 4285.

Among the sectoral indices, the Bankex led the upsurge with gains of 1.06% at 7824 followed by the BSE Teck index (up 0.89% at 3722) and the BSE IT index (up 0.79% at 4884). However, the BSE FMCG index tumbled by 1.27% at 1870. The market breadth was positive. Of the 2,677 scrips traded on the BSE 1,325 stocks advanced, 1,279 stocks declined and 73 stocks ended unchanged.

Among the Sensex stocks, banking major SBI was the lead gainer and soared 2.10% at Rs1,436. Reliance Energy advanced 1.72% at Rs551, Bajaj Auto moved up by 1.35% at Rs2,249, Infosys jumped 1.32% at Rs1,942, Bharti Airtel shot up by 1.28% at Rs837, Ranbaxy added 1.12% at Rs392 and HDFC rose 1.08% at Rs1,897. ICICI Bank, Tata Steel and BHEL gained marginally. Among the laggards, ITC dropped 1.79% at Rs162, L&T shed 1.26% at Rs1,945, Gujarat Ambuja declined by 1.01% at Rs113 and Satyam Computer lost 0.86% at Rs463.

Banking stocks were the star performers, Kotak Bank jumped 5.54% at Rs607, Oriental Bank surged 3.61% at Rs243, Federal Bank jumped 3.55% at Rs286, Canara Bank scaled up 2.38% at Rs256, Bank of Baroda spurted 2.37% at Rs281, Indian Overseas Bank soared 2% at Rs117 and Andhra Bank was up 1.22% at Rs87.

Over 1.29 crore of Nitin Fire Protection shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Reliance Natural Resources (1.22 crore shares), GV Films (91.13 lakh shares), IFCI (87.96 lakh shares) and SREI Infrastructure (75.24 lakh shares).

Nitin Fire Protection registered a turnover of Rs590 crore on the BSE followed by Reliance Capital (Rs111 crore), Reliance Industries (Rs106 crore), SBI (Rs93 crore) and Cinemax (Rs75 crore).