Post Session Commentary - May 14 2008

The Indian markets closed on a firm note on the back of heavy buying towards the end of the session. Though the market opened on a disappointing note due to the mixed cues from the global markets but gathered the momentum after the mid session to keep on marching forward to close with good gains. From the sectoral front, the metal stocks remained in the limelight as most buying was seen from these baskets. The market breadth was positive as 1425 stocks closed in green while 1239 stocks closed in red.

The BSE Sensex closed higher by 225.49 points at 16,978.35 and NSE Nifty closed up by 53.95 points at 5,011.75. It touched an intraday high of 17,014.94 and low of 16,626.35. The BSE Mid Cap and Small Cap closed higher by 33 points and 36.78 points at 6,989.81 and 8,434.49 respectively.

The Metal index surged 687.30 points to close at 16,435.18. Major gainers are Hind Zinc (17.14%), Hindalco inds (6.86%), Jindal Steel (6.07%), Sterlite inds (4.70%), Bhushan Steel (4.60%), Sesa Goa (4.39%) and Tata Steel (4.12%).

The Oil & Gas index closed marginally higher by 9.55 points at 10,916.92 as RPL (3.17%), Cairn India (2.52%), RNRL (2.32%) and Essar Oil (1.34%) closed in green while ONGC (5.85%), IOCL (5.08%), Gail India (3.34%) and BPCL (2.73%) closed in red.

The Capital Goods index grew by 85.09 points to close at 13,146.06. Scrips hat gained are BEML (2.89%), Siemens (2.86%), Praj inds (2.66%), Bharat Elec (1.92%), Punj Lloyd (1.45%), Suzlon Energy (1.43%) and AIA Eng (1.10%).

The IT index closed up by 162.22 points at 4,427.36. Gainers are TCS (7.09%), Niit Techno (5.53%), I-Flex (4.57%), Infosys (4.53%), HCL Tech (4.39%), Tech Mahindra (3.26%), Rolta Ind (3.02%), Wipro (1.90%) and Aptech (1.52%).

The Consumer Durables index advanced by 106.11 points to close at 4,507.56 as Titan Ind (8.40%), Lloyd Ele (4.23%), Gitanjali GE (3.97%) and Rajesh Exports (1.55%).

From the Health Care baskets, Dr. Reddy’s lab (8.34%), Orchid Chem (7.25%), Divi’s lab (3.65%), Bilcare (3.15%), Lupin (3.06%), Apollo Hos (2.29%), Matrix Labs (2.22%) and Ranbaxy Labs (2.09%) closed in green.