Market welcomes earnings

The market continued to scale new heights and the Sensex closed firm above 15500 for the first time largely owing to institutional buying. Positive Asian indices helped the market open at 15358, up 56 points. The Sensex sailed in positive territory throughout the trading session on strong bullish sentiment and traded above the 15400 mark for the major portion of the day. Substantial buying in heavyweights, Reliance Industries and Bajaj Auto, followed by strong quarterly numbers from ACC, L&T and Ranbaxy helped the Sensex to record its new high of 15593 in the late trades. The Sensex recorded gains for the second consecutive session and added 249 points to close at 15550, while the Nifty moved up by 63 points at 4562.

The breadth of the market was positive. Of the 2,677 stocks traded on the BSE 1,503 stocks advanced, 1,104 stocks declined and 70 stocks ended unchanged. Of the 12 sectoral indices on the BSE, ten indices ended in positive territory. The BSE Oil & Gas ended firm with gains of 2.91% at 8,168,the BSE Auto index rose 1.89% at 5,148 and the BSE CG index added 1.59% at 12,876. However, the BSE Realty index, the BSE CD index ended weak.

Action in several index heavyweights lifted the market. Bajaj Auto led the pack and shot up by 4.89% at Rs2,394. Tata Motors soared 4.70% at Rs778, Reliance surged 4.20% at Rs1,896, Grasim flared up by 3.38% at Rs2,994, Infosys jumped by 2.51% at Rs1,996. M&M added 2.30% at Rs823, L&T advanced by 2.25% at Rs2,382, Reliance Communication moved up by 2.13% at Rs579 and ACC was up 1.52% at Rs1,150. However, HLL at Rs198, Reliance Energy at Rs686, Cipla at Rs205 and Tata Steel at Rs682 dropped marginally.

Oil stocks rallied sharply today. Reliance Petro shot up by 3.98% at Rs118, Gail India soared 1.98% at Rs338, Cairn India flared up by 1.04% at Rs160. IOC, ONGC and BPCL gained moderately.

Auto stocks, too, witnessed strong appreciation. Cummins India vaulted by 7.19% at Rs379, Apollo Tyre jumped by 3.02% at Rs380 and Exide Industries added 1.29% at Rs47.

Over 11.71 crore Spice Tele shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Tata Teleservices (1.13 crore shares), IKF Technologiesl (98.45 lakh shares), Zee Entertainment (80.79 lakh shares), and Nagarjuna Fertilizers (72.89 lakh shares).

Value-wise, Spice Tele registered a turnover of Rs696 crore on the BSE followed by DLF (Rs371 crore), Zee Entertainment (Rs272 crore), Reliance Industries (Rs208 crore) and Reliance Communication (Rs151 crore).