Markets gain after lacklustre trades

After opening 61 points above its previous close the market jumped immediately to touch another all-time high of 14907 on the back of buying in pharma, telecom and capital goods stocks. However, lack of buying support in index pivotals and selling in technology stocks dragged the Sensex into the red and the index touched its intra-day low of 14791.The market remained lacklustre thereafter and hovered around its previous close in the afternoon. The late round of buying thereafter saw the Sensex recover its early losses and end the session with the a gain of 74 points at 14880. The Nifty closed the session at 4359, up two points.

Surprisingly the breadth of the market was negative. Of the 2,676 stocks that traded on the BSE, 1,441 stocks declined, 1,185 stocks advanced and 50 stocks ended unchanged. Among the sectoral indices the BSE Metal index moved up by 1.17% at 10785 followed by the BSE FMCG index (up 0.77% at 1863) and the BSE Auto index (up 0.71% at 4838).

The cement stocks witnessed strong buying interest. ACC soared 8.98% at Rs1,023, Gujarat Ambuja Cement rose 4.46% at Rs130 and Grasim was up 1.35% at Rs2,739. Among the other major gainers Tata Steel shot up by 2.61% at Rs616, Cipla jumped 2.29% at Rs218, NTPC added 2.17% at Rs155, ICICI Bank gained 1.98% at Rs985, Tata Motors moved up by 1.45% at Rs698 and HLL was up 1.44% at Rs197. However, ONGC slipped 1.62% at Rs874, Wipro lost 1.20% at Rs509 and SBI was down 1.20% at Rs1,563.

Metal stocks notched up significant gains during the day. Panchmahal Steel surged 9.99% at Rs197, Shree Precoated Steel scaled up 4.99% at Rs343, Southern Iron & Steel rose 4.78% at Rs29, Binani Industries jumped 4.58% at Rs215, JSW Steel added 2.91% at Rs638, Madras Aluminum gained 2.84% at Rs540 and Mahindra Ugin Steel was up 2.60% at Rs93.

Over 1.21 crore IFCI shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Vishal Retail (1.14 crore shares), Reliance Natural Resources (71.14 lakh shares), Silverline Industries (63.65 lakh shares) and Bellary Steels (50.88 lakh shares).

Value-wise Vishal Retail registered a turnover of Rs854 crore on the BSE followed by ACC (Rs144 crore), Indiabulls Real Estate (Rs135 crore), Reliance Industries (Rs106 crore) and SBI (Rs103 crore).