IT stocks rally in volatile market

The Sensex showed a smart recovery towards the close after shedding over 430 points from the day's high of 17,912. The market remained volatile despite positive cues from Asian and US markets. Banking and capital goods stocks witnessed selling pressure throughout the trading session, however, select buying in IT and metal stocks saw the Sensex recover from its low of 17,482. The mood turned bullish towards the close as European indices showed tremendous strength in opening trades, and the market surged on short covering in index pivotal stocks. The Sensex finally ended firm with a gain of 117 points at 17,735. The broad-based Nifty too showed a recovery and closed firm at 5,192, up 37 points.

The market breadth was positive, with the gainers outpacing the losers in a ratio of 1.19:1 on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). Of the 2,782 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,472 stocks advanced, 1,241 stocks declined and 69 stocks ended unchanged. Barring the BSE Bankex index and the BSE CG index, most of the sectoral indices recovered from their lows and ended firm. The BSE IT index surged by 5.33% followed by the BSE Metal index (up 4.12%) and the BSE Teck index (up 3.24%). While the BSE Bankex index slipped 1.05% and the BSE CG index fell 0.62%.

Select counters logged steady gains. Satyam Computer rallied sharply by 8.45% at Rs458, Hindalco surged 7.22 % at Rs189, Wipro advanced 4.95% at Rs432, Infosys added 3.96% at Rs1,630, TCS moved up 3.89% at Rs918, Ambuja Cement jumped by 3.28% at Rs120, Bajaj Auto gained 3.05% at Rs2,411 and HLL was up 2.76% at Rs220. However, HDFC slipped 3.75% at Rs2,649, while ICICI Bank, BHEL, SBI and Grasim were down over 1% each.

Over 2.25 crore RNRL shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Centurion Bank of Punjab (1.58 crore shares), Ispat Industries (1.11 crore shares), Essar Oil (84.37 lakh shares) and Gujarat NRE coke (82.92 lakh shares).

Valuewise, Reliance Capital clocked a turnover of Rs307 crore on the BSE followed by RNRL (Rs302 crore), Reliance Power (Rs241 crore), Essar Oil (Rs200 crore) and Reliance Energy (Rs158 crore).