Market ends upbeat, gains 206 points

The market was back on track after slipping on Friday. Though it came off its highs, but still ended firm above the 15,350 mark. The bounce from the recent sell-off was in line with the recovery witnessed in the major Asian indices, which were up around 1% each. The Sensex resumed 143 points higher at 15,333 and advanced further on substantial buying support. Buying in realty and banking stocks propelled the index to an intra-day high of 15,553 in afternoon trades. After an initial upmove, the Sensex witnessed profit taking in the second half of the session and erased most of its gains to touch an intra-day low of 15,333. The index finally wrapped up the session with gains of 206 points at 15,396, while the Nifty closed with gains of 55 points at 4,573.

Of the 2,724 stocks traded on the BSE 1,770 stocks advanced, 878 stocks declined and 76 stocks ended unchanged. Among the sectoral indices, the BSE Realty index was the major gainer and was up 3.54% at 5,870.87 followed by the BSE Bankex index that was up 2.83% at 7,255.63. The BSE IT index, the BSE Power index, the BSE Teck index, the BSE FMCG index, the BSE Metal index and the BSE PSU index ended the day in positive territory. On the other hand, the BSE CD index and the BSE Auto index ended the day in red.

Among the index heavyweights, ICICI Bank gained 4.43% while Reliance Infrastructure notched up gains of 3.97%, Bharti Airtel moved up 3.15% at Rs839.60 and NTPC scaled up 3.07% at Rs166.05. Cipla, HDFC Bank, DLF, Infosys, Hindustan Unilever and ITC were up 2% each. Wipro, HDFC, Satyam Computer Services and Larsen & Toubro gained 1% each. Tata Steel, Reliance Industries, Jaiprakash Associates, ONGC, Tata Consultancy Services and ACC also ended the day in positive territory. However, Hindalco Industries was the major loser and shed 2.31% at Rs170.65. BHEL was down 2.15% at Rs1,511.15 and Reliance Communications shed 1.52% at Rs531. SBI, Maruti Suzuki India and Mahindra & Mahindra ended in negative territory.

Over 2.58 crore Chambal Fertlisers shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Nagaarjuna Fertlisers (1.88 crore shares), Anu’s Laboratories (1.10 crore shares), IFCI (94.35 lakh shares) and Reliance Natural Resources (88.87 lakh shares).