Post Market Watch - Apr 3 2008

The 30-share index Sensex slipped after opening positive in the initial trading hours. The index again bounced back to the positive and proceeded to trade strong backed by intense buying seen in frontliners. It touched a high of 16,002.73. Gains in the Sensex were led by Reliance Industries, Infosys Technologies and Oil & Natural Gas Corp.

However, the Sensex after trading for a short period in the positive zone, could not sustained its strength and slipped into the negative to trade on a flat note. It pared most of its gains to finally close on a positive note, after touching an intraday low of 15,699.21.

The BSE Sensex ended with a gain of 82.15 points at 15,832.55, or 0.52%; while abroad-based NSE Nifty closed at 4,771.60, up 17.4 points, or 0.37%.

Global Cues

Asian shares gained on Thursday, paced by commodities stocks on rise in metal, oil, and rice & wheat prices. BHP Billiton, the world`s largest mining company and Posco, Asia`s third-largest steelmaker led gains among commodities producers.

Market statistics

Out of the total 2,687 stocks traded at the BSE, 1,215 advanced, 1,409 declined while 63 remained unchanged.

Among the sectoral indices at BSE IT surged 3.31%, BSE Oil & Gas rose 1.97%, BSE Metal rose 0.53%, while BSE Bankex declined 0.02%, BSE Auto was down 1.07% and BSE Power dipped 2.60%.



Movers and Shakers



IT companies like Satyam and Wipro, which surged over 5% each to Rs 428.05 and Rs 435.30 respectively and TCS rose 4.13% to Rs 885.95. HUL, Infosys, Hindalco, RIL, Tata Steel, Ambuja Cement, ACC, ONGC and ICICI Bank also moved up.



Losers at the BSE Sensex include BHEL, which plunged 5.27% to finish at Rs 1754.95 followed by M&M and REL, which fell over 3% each to Rs 643.75 and Rs 1189.45 respectively. Maruti, Grasim, Tata Motors, HDFC, RComm, SBI and L&T also slipped.



Top Volumes



RNRL topped the volume chart with 14.04 million shares, Ispat Industries witnessed volumes of 13.39 million shares, RPL with 11.78 million shares and Essar Oil with 8.55 million shares.


New Listing

Shares of Mumbai-based Gammon Infrastructure Projects (GIPL), an infrastructure development company, after listing at a marginal premium of 1.79%, settled at a discount of 5.30% at the NSE on concern over the valuation of the company.

Shares touched a high of Rs 185 and a low of Rs 147 during the day. It closed with a discount of Rs 8.85, or 5.30%, at Rs 158.15 as against issue price of Rs 167. Total volume of shares traded was 12,726,928 and the total turnover was Rs 2,021.8 million at the NSE.