Sensex ends buoyant shrugging off weak global trend

Today the market saw a smart rally despite weakness in the global markets on worries about the health of the US economy. Despite slipping over 300 points in early trades the Sensex witnessed a relief rally led by across-the-board buying. The Sensex recovered quickly from its lows and remained upbeat through the session as value buying emerged at lower levels. The Sensex received major support from metal, energy and capital goods stocks. The market gathered steam towards the close and the Sensex crossed the psychological mark of 15,000 and touched the day's high of 15,030 before closing at 14,993, up 74 points. The Nifty, too, bounced back sharply and advanced 39 points to close at 4,359.

The breadth of the market was positive, with the gainers outpacing the losers in the ratio of 1.40:1. Of the 2,693 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,530 stocks advanced, 1,094 stocks declined and 69 stocks ended unchanged. Most of the sectoral indices closed with significant gains. The BSE Metal index was the major gainer and soared 4.24% followed by the BSE PSU index (up 1.54%) and the BSE Oil & Gas index (up 1.24%) etc. However, the BSE IT Index slipped 1.19% while, the BSE Teck Index and the BSE HC Index closed with the marginal losses.

Attracting strong buying support Tata Steel surged by 8.99% at Rs660, ONGC shot up by 3.05% at Rs834, BHEL jumped by 2.45% at Rs1,851, Hindalco advanced by 2.12% at Rs157, Reliance Energy scaled up by 2.04% at Rs782, Tata Motors zoomed 1.80% at Rs675, ACC added 1.69% at Rs1,044, SBI vaulted by 1.69% at Rs1,575, Grasim firmed up by 1.55% at Rs2910 and L&T climbed 1.53% at Rs2,588. Among the laggards, Infosys slipped 2.55% at Rs1,834, NTPC shed 1.29% at Rs165, HDFC declined by 1.19% at Rs1,957, while Satyam Computer, ICICI Bank, Dr Reddy's Lab, Cipla and Ambuja Cement fell marginally.

Metal stocks witnessed sustained buying support. SAIL soared 5.15% at Rs161, Shree Precoated added 3.90% at Rs305, Sesa Goa scaled up by 2.86% at Rs1,927 and Sterlite Industries gained 2.70% at Rs615.

Over 3.63 crore Ispat Industries shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Tata Teleservices (3.25 crore shares), Nagarjuna Fertilisers (1.47 crore shares), UCO Bank (87.75 lakh shares) and IFCI (85.45 lakh shares).

Tata Steel was the most actively traded counter on the BSE and registered a turnover of Rs219 crore followed by Reliance Industries (Rs175 crore), Everonn Systems (Rs167 crore), ICICI Bank (Rs133 crore) and Axis Bank (Rs131 crore).