Metal and health care stocks trigger late Sensex bounce back

A late bout of hectic buying action in metal, health care and other heavyweight counters triggered a major rally in the Sensex, which otherwise lingered in negative territory for better part of the trading session. On the back of a weak Asian indices, the Sensex witnessed extreme volatility in early trades. After resuming weak at 17,810, the index advanced sharply and touched the intra-day high of 17,921, thereafter Sensex began to dip sharply on heavy profit taking to touch the day's low of 17,690. While the market remained subdued thereafter, the Sensex on fresh buying support rebounded sharply at close. The Sensex finally ended the session with marginal loss of a single point at 17,825, while the Nifty advanced 17 points to close at 5,285.

Sectoral indices were mixed on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). The BSE Metal index led the pack with a surge of 1.98% followed by BSE HC index , which gained 1.72%, and BSE Auto index which moved up 1.18%. BSE CG, Power and PSU indices gained marginally and closed in positive territory. Among the losers the BSE Reality index dropped 1.47%.

Leading the upsurge Hindalco flared up 4.03% at Rs203.85. Among other major gainers Bajaj Auto shot up by 3.61% at Rs2,255, HDFC rose 3.39% at Rs2,775, M&M jumped by 3.26% at Rs680 and BHEL added 2.68% at Rs2,323. Cipla, Satyam, Ranbaxy, Tata Steel and Wipro gained 1-2% each. Select frontline counters, however, witnessed profit taking. DLF dropped 2.37% at Rs805, while SBI declined 2.11% at Rs2,038. RIL, REL, Ambuja Cement and Infosys ended with steady losses.

Among other major gainers NALCO soared 7.01% at Rs477.95, Tata Communications flared up 6.56% at Rs518, Spice Tele rose 5.78% at Rs36.60 and Sun Pharma added 5.58% at Rs1,259.

Over 3.15 crore Manjuhsree shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Tulsi Extrusion (1.27 crore shares), RNRL (1.09 crore shares), Nagarjuna Fertilisers (1.07 crore shares) and Ispat Industries (0.80 crore shares).