Post Market Commentary - Feb 5 2008

The market closed with marginal gains after struggling a lot throughout the trading session. The market opened on a negative note backed by unfavoring cues from the global markets but managed to recover from the initial fall but unable to sustain at higher levels due to profit booking across the counters and finally closed with little gains. A lot of volatility was witnessed during the trading session and the investors took calculated steps in booking their positions. However, the Small Caps and Mid Caps out performed the benchmark indices as most buying was seen from these baskets. The metal, realty, and oil & gas reported most buying from the sectoral indices space. The BSE Sensex closed marginally higher by 2.84 points at 18,663.16 while NSE Nifty closed up by 20.4 points at 5,483.90. The BSE Mid Cap and Small Cap indices also closed higher by 66.38 points and 105 points at 8,071.29 and 10,466.78 respectively.

BSE Metal index closed higher by 355.62 points at 16,793.81. Scrips that advanced are Jindal Steel (13.25%), Ispat Inds (6%), Welspun Guj (2.59%), JSW Steel (2.03%) and Tata Steel (1.87%).

BSE Realty index grew by 157.77 points to close at 10,671.23. Gainers are Sobha Dev 8.74%, Phoenix mill 4.87%, Unitech 4.59%, HDIL 4.20%, Parsvnath 3.29%, Purvankara 2.73%.

BSE Oil & Gas index closed up by 122.13 points at 11,415.49. Gainers are RNRL (6.98%), RPL (2.25%), ONGC (1.78%), HPCL (1.57%), IOCL (1.15%) and Reliance Inds (0.90%).

BSE HealthCare index closed up by 62.39 points at 3,769.45 as Orchid Chem 4.41%, Fortis Health 3.41%, Dr Reddy Lab 3.13%, Nicholas Piramal 2.38%, Aurobindo Pharma 2.47% closed in green.

BSE Auto index fell by 83.03 points to close at 5,024.67 as Hero Honda (5.56%), Maruti Suzuki (2.70%), M&M (2.24%), Bajaj Auto (2.24%) and Tata Motors (1.87%) closed in red.

BSE Bankex index closed lower by 173.31 points at 10,937.60. Losers are Axis bank 2.80%, Union bank 2.43%, HDFC bank 2.14%, SBI 1.90%, Kotak bank 1.85% and ICICI bank 1.69%.