Bulls strike back

The Sensex, which saw a 79-point loss on Monday and a 102-point loss on Tuesday, staged a strong comeback today. In perspective, the Sensex seems all set to buck the losing trend, today. The 30-stock index started the day 67 points higher from yesterday’s closing taking cue from buoyant Asian indices. On the back of strong buying in heavyweights, realty, capital goods and health care stocks, the index rallied to today’s high of 14,746 (around 222 points higher than yesterday’s close) in afternoon. The index held the high ground and traded above 14,600 (about 70 points higher from yesterday’s closing) for the major part of the day and finally ended at 14,678, up 135 points its yesterday’s close. The 50-stock Nifty of NSE advanced 48 points to close at 4,416.

All 13 sectoral indices bar fast moving consumer good (FMCG; down 0.01%) index of the BSE ended the session with gains. Realty index (up 2.13%) led the list of sectoral indices that posted gains for the day, followed by power, metal, capital goods, and health care indices each of which ended around 2% higher.

Among the gainers in heavyweights, Reliance Communications soared 4% at Rs415.80, Grasim Industries flared up 3.48% at Rs2,025.15, BHEL jumped 3.41% at Rs1,735.05, HDFC Bank scaled up 3.28% at Rs1,247, Bharti Airtel surged 2.96% at Rs815, Ranbaxy Laboratories added 2.71% at Rs505.65, DLF jumped 1.72% at Rs509 and Reliance Infrastructure gained 1.55% at Rs1,009.70. However, ONGC, Mahindra & Mahindra, and Satyam Computer services registered marginal losses for the day.

The market breadth was extremely positive as around 61% stocks (1,662 stocks) advanced, while around 35% stocks (970 stocks) declined on the BSE. Around 3% stocks (86 stocks) ended unchanged.

On turnover front, over 1.89 crore Reliance Natural Resources shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Chambal Fertilisers & Chemicals (1.14 crore shares), Ispat Industries (0.96 crore shares), Vishal Information Technologies (0.91 Crore shares) and Nagarjuna Fertilisers & Chemicals (76 lakh shares).

In value terms, Vishal Information Technologies registered a turnover of Rs286 crore followed by Reliance Capital (Rs233 crore), Reliance Natural Resources (Rs187 crore), Reliance Industries (Rs168 crore), and SEL Manufacturing Company (Rs159 crore).