Market gains amid buying in realty and consumer durables

The market reversed yesterday's downward trend and posted significant gains, as investors took cue from strong mixed Asian indices and avoided bearish US markets trend. After opening slightly higher at 15,647, the Sensex immediately breached 15,500 levels, but lost the edge and pared gains on the resumption of profit taking. As the market entered the second half of the trading session, the Sensex turned choppy and crumbled to the day's low of 15,331 on increased selling. The sentiment slowly turned bullish thereafter, with a strong bout of fresh buying in reality, consumer durables and select heavyweights lifting the Sensex to an intra-day high of 15,798. The Sensex ended the session with gains of 403 points at 15,761, while the Nifty added 122 points to close at 4,746.

However, the breadth of the market was negative. Of the 2,732 stocks traded on the BSE 1,458 stocks declined, 1,214 stocks advanced and 60 stocks ended unchanged. On the sectoral front, indices ended with gains. The BSE Realty index was the major gainer and rose 4.76% at 7,713 and the BSE CD index added 4.03% at 4,028.

Leading the upsurge in heavyweights, Reliance Energy advanced 8.26% at Rs1,296.15, Jaiprakash rose 7.83% at Rs236.25, DLF jumped 7.83% at Rs654.25, ICICI Bank scaled up 4.81% at Rs878.20, Hindalco moved up by 4.52% at Rs181.55, NTPC surged 4.39% at Rs194.90, Satyam added 4.07% at Rs378.85 and L&T gained 3.68% at Rs2,908. However, Bharti Airtel slumped 3.27% at Rs752.95, Mahindra & Mahindra tumbled 1.75% at Rs649.45, Ambuja shed 0.70% at Rs120, Maruti declined 0.54% at Rs835.20 and BHEL dropped 0.20% at Rs1,878.

Over 2.88 crore RNRL shares changed hands on the BSE followed by RPL (1.72 crore shares), Ispat Industries (1.39 crore shares), Power Grid (0.85 crore shares) and Essar Oil (0.71 crore shares).