Weak global cues fail to dampen market spirit

The market went into a correction mode at the opening bell, tracking the weakness in international markets. Yesterday, the US Federal Reserve cut the interest rate by quarter points disappointing investors looking for a bigger cut. The market remained choppy thereafter as investors continued to book profits on every rise. The Sensex managed to enter into positive territory by the afternoon but succumbed to heavy selling in frontline and information technology stocks and touched the day's low of 20,045. However, eruption of buying towards the close saw the Sensex pare the losses and end the session with a gain of 85 points at 20,376. The Nifty closed the session at 6,159, up 62 points.

The market breadth was extremely positive. Of the 2,924 stocks that traded on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), 2,135 stocks advanced, 755 stocks declined and 34 stocks ended unchanged. Except the BSE Bankex index and the BSE IT index all the sectoral indices closed in the green. The BSE Metal index surged 3.01% at 19,629 followed by the BSE Realty index (up 2.94% at 12,540) and the BSE HC index (up 2.75% at 4,174).

Among the Sensex stocks, HDFC was the leading gainer and soared 5.33% at Rs3,104, Reliance Communication advanced 3.51% at Rs766, Tata Steel jumped 3.42% at Rs864, NTPC shot up by 3.21% at Rs251, Hindalco moved up 3.06% at Rs206 and Cipla gained 2.36% at Rs200. Among the laggards Infosys tumbled 3.34% at Rs1,685, Satyam Computer shed 2.39% at Rs431, ICICI Bank declined by 1.96% at Rs1,290 while BHEL, Reliance Energy, Bajaj Auto, Ambuja Cement and Maruti Suzuki closed with marginal losses.

Over 3.97 crore IKF Technologies shares changed hands on the BSE followed by GV Films (3.86 crore shares), Tata Teleservices (2.53 crore shares), Ispat Industries (1.54 crore shares) and Gujarat Petronet (1.52 crore shares).

Edelwess registered a turnover of Rs552 crore on the BSE followed by Essar Oil (Rs315 crore), Reliance Natural Resources (Rs256 crore), Reliance Petroleum (Rs178 crore) and Jindal Steel (Rs173 crore).