Post Market Commentary - Feb 19 2008

The market closed with marginal gains after a strong start to the session. Taking the strong cues from the Asian markets, the domestic market opened with a bang and created a rally across the sectoral indices scrips. The market tumbled after the mid session to pare all its initial gains as the profit booking across the sectoral indices prevailed and finally managed to close with little gains. The Small Cap and Mid Cap scrips seemed to attract the investor''s confidence as most buying was seen from these baskets. The BSE Sensex closed higher by 27.61 points at 18,075.66 and NSE Nifty closed up by 3.9 points at 5,280.80. The BSE Mid Cap and Small Cap closed higher by 43.85 points and 40.19 points at 7,685.33 and 9,795.54 respectively.

The IPO of Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) was subscribed 1.63 times by the end of the day. The IPO received bids for 25.46 crore shares as compared to 15.61 crore shares on offer.

BSE Metal index closed down by 37.25 points at 16,209.95 as Hindalco Industries (2.44%), Ispat Industries (1.85%), Sterlite Industries (1.76%), Tata Steel (1.05%) closed in red.

BSE Bankex index closed higher by 18.91 points at 10,963.76. Gainers are ICICI Bank (0.80%), HDFC Bank (0.73%), Bank of India (0.54%), SBI (0.39%), PNB (0.35%) and Union Bank (0.25%).

BSE Realty index fell by 136.21 points to close at 10,070.74. Major losers are Purvankara (4.29%), Mahindra Life (2.30%), Omaxe Ltd. (2.03%), India Bull Real (2%).

BSE CG closed higher by 69.62 points at 16,392.27 as Havell India (3.88%), BEML (3.61%), AIA Eng (3.01%), Crompton Greaves (2.35%), L&T (1.26%), closed higher.

BSE Oil & Gas index fell by 42.03 points to close at 11,130.88. Losers are BPCL (3.25%), GAIL India (2.66%), Cairn India (2.42%), RNRL (1.99%), IOCL (0.75%) and ONGC (0.68%).

BSE Consumer Durables index closed higher by 134.08 points at 4,842.64. Gainers are Titan Inds (5.46%), Gitanjali (3.23%), Blue Star (2.71%), Lloyd Ele (2.20%) and Videocon Ind (1.62%).