Realty stocks rally in a volatile market

The mood was extremely bullish in the first hour of the trading session as the Sensex recorded a new high of 16,416 on continued optimism regarding foreign investment inflows. However, IT companies suffered a setback on the rising rupee, as the rupee breached its nine-year high of 39.90 against US dollar. Despite registering new high, the market exhibited weak trend as the trading progressed. A negative open in European markets saw the Sensex touch the day's low of 16,261 by the afternoon. Exhibiting sharp volatility thereafter, the Sensex recovered on sustained buying in capital goods and metal stocks. Although action in the frontline stocks was subdued, realty stocks stole the show as the BSE Realty index rose over 6% on the back of solid gains in Unitech, Indiabulls Realestate and DLF, which appreciated by more than 4-12% each. The Sensex finally ended the session marginally above its previous close at 16,348, up 25 points, while the Nifty gained15 points to close at 4,748.

Among the sectoral indices, the Realty index led the upsurge with gains of 6.85% at 9,044 followed by the BSE CG index (up 1.98% at 14,392), the BSE Metal index (up 1.41% at 12,723) and the BSE FMCG (up 1.16% at 2,166). However, the BSE IT index slipped 2.24%. The market breadth was negative. Of the 2,855 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,589 stocks declined 1,212 stocks advanced and 54 stocks ended unchanged.

Out of the 30 Sensex stocks, 12 managed to end in the green while 18 stocks ended with losses. Reliance Energy was the leading gainer and soared 4.40% at Rs988. M&M jumped 3.93% at Rs770, ITC shot up by 3.77% at Rs194, L&T advanced 2.87% at Rs2,746, Hindalco moved up by 1.66% at Rs162, Grasim added 1.56% at Rs3,380 and Tata Motors gained 1.36% at Rs732. Among the laggards Wipro dropped 3.27% at Rs434, Infosys shed 2.89% at Rs1,799, TCS declined by 2.12% at Rs1,001, Satyam fell 1.91% at Rs421 and Maruti Udyog slipped 1.71 at Rs910.

Over 2.90 crore Magnum Ventures shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Reliance Natural Resources (2.48 crore shares), IKF Technologies (1.90 crore shares), Tata Teleservices (1.29 crore shares) and Ispat Industries (1.12 crore shares).

DLF registered a turnover of Rs372 crore on the BSE followed by Wipro (Rs230 crore), Magnum Ventures (Rs161 crore), Indiabulls Realestate (Rs137 crore) and Reliance Natural Resources (Rs136 crore).