IT stocks shine in lacklustre market

After yesterday's flat close, the market saw a gap up opening tracking positive Asian peers. But, indices came off their highs as investors booked profits in heavyweights, capital goods, and power stocks and the Sensex touched the day's low of 19,098. However, IT stocks moved up in anticipation of companies reporting good numbers and some value buying. The market recovered thereafter, but due to lack of buying interest in most of the counters the trading was range-bound with an upward bias. The market eventually gave up its early gains and wrapped up the session with a gain of 71 points at 19,163. The broad based Nifty closed the session at 5,767 up 15 points.

The market breadth was negative, with losers outpacing gainers in the ratio of 1.5:1. Of the 2,950 stocks traded on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), 1,754 stocks declined, 1,166 stocks advanced and 30 stocks ended unchanged. Most of the sectoral indices ended in the red. BSE FMCG index dropped by 1.16% at 2,198 followed by BSE CG index (down 0.91% at 18,726) and BSE CD index (down 0.62% at 6,084). However, BSE IT index gained 3.34% at 4,321, BSE Tech index (up 1.50% at 3,777) and BSE Auto index (up 0.28% at 5,541).

Among the Sensex stocks, steel major Satyam Computer was the leading gainer and its stock price soared 5.85% at Rs428. Among other stocks Infosys advanced 3.68% at Rs1,698, Reliance Energy jumped 3.04% at Rs1,940, Tata Motors moved up by 2.86% at Rs711, TCS gained 2.34% at Rs1,045, Wipro added 1.77% at Rs492 and DLF surged 1.09% at Rs961. Among the laggards, ACC slipped 2.77% at Rs1,002, Cipla shed 2.04% at Rs211, ITC declined by 1.65% at Rs196, Ranbaxy fell by 1.65% at Rs196 and BHEL lost 1.31% at Rs2,368.

Over 6.11 crore IFCI shares changed hands on BSE followed by Ispat Industries (2.10 crore shares), IKF Technologies (1.78 crore shares), Harig Cranks (1.28 crore shares) and GV Films (1.27 crore shares).

IFCI registered a turnover of Rs473 crore on BSE followed by Reliance Energy (Rs291 crore), Reliance Industries (Rs251 crore), Ispat Industries (Rs175 crore) and Reliance Petroleum (Rs869 crore).