Volatile market ends buoyant

The market wiped out losses of over 58 points incurred in the first half, after a strong bout of buying led by Ambuja Cement, ITC and Hindalco triggered wide-spread buying. In a highly volatile trading session, the Sensex resumed 83 points higher at 16,359, but soon turned negative following weakness in Asian indices and crashed to the day's low of 16,218 on relentless selling. While the market was on a recovery path thereafter, the Sensex witnessed a sharp turnaround in the afternoon as gains in heavyweights, FMCG, IT and metal stocks propelled it to an intra-day high of 16,563. After gyrating 345 points during the intra-day trades, the Sensex gained 250 points to close at 16,525, while the Nifty ended 59 points higher at 4,918.

However, the market breadth ended negative. Of the 2,756 stocks traded on the BSE 1,349 stocks declined, 1,318 stocks advanced and 89 stocks ended unchanged. Except BSE CG index and BSE Power, all other sectoral indices ended in positive territory. The BSE FMCG index led the pack and gained 4.19% at 2,443.68 followed by the BSE IT index (up 2.61% at 4,566.42), the BSE Metal index (up 2.33% at 16,649) the BSE Bankex index (up 2.31% at 7,933.50) and the BSE Teck index (up 2.12% at 3,570.05).

Ambuja Cement was the star performer among the heavyweights and the stock soared 6.66% at Rs104.10. Among the other major gainers, ITC advanced 6.19% at Rs222.05, Hindalco jumped 5.96% at Rs196.55, TCS rose 4.46% at Rs1,009.70, Tata Steel moved up by 4% at Rs902.70, SBI advanced 3.12% at Rs1,519 and Satyam Computer Services added 3.09% at Rs514.40. However, BHEL, L&T, ONGC, M&M, NTPC, HDFC and Reliance Communications inched lower.

FMCG stocks were in demand and scaled higher. United Spirits soared 4.02% at Rs1,612.90, Dabur India flared up 3.15% at Rs94.85, Nestle added 2.93% at Rs1,813, GlaxoSmithKline gained 2.61% at Rs718.60, Hindustan Unilever, Godrej and Rai Agro Industries were up 2% each. In the IT pack, Mphasis zoomed 10.02% at Rs250.85, Aptech shot up by 5.79% at Rs238.35, Rolta India rose 4.30% at Rs313.05 and NIIT gained 3.19% at Rs106.60.

Over 3.48 crore Chambal Fertliser shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Nagarjuna fertilisers (1.84 crore shares), Ispat Industries (1.35 crore shares), IFCI (1.23 crore shares) and Spice Tele (1.14 crore shares).