Market trims gains, closes above 15,000

The market held firm ground in the first half of the trading session, which saw the Sensex gain over 450 points. Backed by strong Asian markets and overall bullish mood, the market witnessed sharp upmove in most of the frontline and sector-based counters that triggered a major rally and lifted the Sensex to a new intra-day high of 15,423. The rally began to fizzle out in noon trades as extended selling pressure in most of the heavyweights dragged the index to a low of 15,036 in late trades, up 75 points from its last close of 14,961. The Sensex signed off the session above the 15,050 mark at 15,074, up 112 points, while Nifty advanced 15 points to close at 4,518.

The breadth of the market was however negative. Of the 2,786 stocks traded on the BSE 1,444 stocks ended lower, 1,266 stocks ended up and 76 stocks remained unchanged. The sectoral indices had a mixed day. The BSE Auto index rose over 2%, while the BSE capital goods (CG) index, BSE Teck index and BSE information technology (IT) index were up with steady gains. The BSE Metal index, BSE public sector unit (PSU) index, BSE Power index, BSE Realty index and BSE health care (HC) index however ended lower.

Select blue chip stocks notched up significant gains. Maruti Suzuki India led the pack with gains of over 6.25% at Rs652.80. Among other gainers, Tata Motors advanced 4.31% at Rs426.70, Bharti Airtel added 3.59% at Rs869.70, ACC scaled up 3.48% at Rs637.60, Tata Consultancy Services jumped by 3.32% at Rs858.45 and HDFC Bank flared up 2.74% at Rs1,216.80. Mahindra & Mahindra, Larsen & Toubro, Hindustan Unilever and ICICI Bank ended with decent gains. Weakness in select counters trimmed the gains of the index to a greater extent. Tata Steel at Rs645.65, Tata Power at Rs1061.10, State Bank of India at Rs1,523.70, Reliance Infra at Rs1,011, HDFC at Rs2,395.80 DLF at Rs544.60 and NTPC at Rs180.25 declined over 1-4% each.

Auto stocks registered decent gains. Bajaj Auto soared 5.77% at Rs559.45, Bharat Forge scaled up 5.19% at Rs269.70, Tata Motors moved up by 4.31% at Rs426.70 and Apollo Tyres gained 2.86% at Rs32.40. Mahindra & Mahindra, Ashok Leyland, MRF and Exide were up around 1.2% each.

Over 3.57 crore Reliance Natural Resources shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Ispat industries (1.42 crore shares), Kashyap Tech (1.27 Crore shares), IFCI (1.09 crore shares) and Tata Teleservices (85.87 lakh shares).