Market stages gains on late buying

After slipping over 224 points in early trades, the Sensex staged a recovery in afternoon on hectic buying in frontline and banking stocks. The bulls were back in action after closing flat for last couple of sessions as the market registered sharp gains on the back of all-round buying support. Taking a cue from positive Asian indices the Sensex resumed 92 points above its previous close of 20,301. However, profit bookings in the Sensex heavyweights, IT and capital goods stocks dragged the Sensex to the day's low of 20,077. The market soon overcame the early hitch on positive opening in most of the European markets and made steady progress before a strong bout of buying lifted the index past the 20,500 level to touch the intra-day high of 20,529. The Sensex finally closed with gains of 165 points at 20,465, while the Nifty rose 35 points to close at 6,179.

The market breadth was positive with gainers outpacing the losers in the ratio of 2.18:1. Of the 2,948 stocks traded on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), 2,010 stocks advanced, 919 stocks declined and 19 stocks ended unchanged. All the sectoral indices barring few ended in the positive territory. The BSE Bankex index was the major gainer and soared 3.23% followed by the Realty (up 2.97%), the BSE PSU index (up 1.25%) and the BSE HC index (up 1.14%).

Among the index heavyweights, HDFC was the star performer and surged 4.76% at Rs3,058. Tata Motors spurted 4.08% at Rs794, Reliance Energy scaled up 3.80% at Rs2,366, Cipla soared 3.43% at Rs219, ICICI Bank advanced 2.88% at Rs1,266, ITC moved up by 1.63% at Rs221 and ONGC added 1.59% at Rs1,269. Ranbaxy, SBI and DLF gained over 1% each. However, Satyam Computer slipped 1.59% at Rs437, BHEL lost 1.33% at Rs2,550, HLL fell 1.31% at Rs215 and Reliance Communication dipped 1.06% at Rs733.

Banking stocks registered significant gains. Canara Bank surged 14.66% at Rs394, Kotak Bank soared 8.17% at Rs1,395, Allahabad Bank firmed up by 8% at Rs140, Andhra Bank added 7.33% at Rs120 and Oriental Bank surged 7.16% at Rs305. Karnataka Bank, Federal Bank, Axis Bank, Union Bank and Punjab National Bank gained over 5-6% each.

Over 4.19 crore GV Films shares changed hands on the BSE followed by RNRL (2.51 crore shares), UCO Bank (2.33 crore shares), IKF Technology (2.26 crore shares) and Ispat Industries (1.96 crore shares).

RNRL was the most actively traded counter on the BSE and registered a turnover of Rs476 crore followed by Reliance Energy (Rs230 crore), Essar Oil (Rs194 crore), UCO Bank (Rs190 crore) and Relegare (Rs178 crore)