Volatile market ends buoyant

Led by buying in JP Associates and SBI, the Sensex recovered smartly in afternoon and ended firm at 14,657.

The market wiped out losses of over 323 points incurred in the first half after a strong bout of buying led by JP Associates, SBI and HDFC triggered wide-spread buying.



In a highly volatile session, the Sensex resumed 292 points lower at 14,064 following weakness in Asian indices and crashed to the day's low of 14,033 on relentless selling. While the market was on a recovery path thereafter, the Sensex witnessed a sharp turnaround in afternoon as gains in heavyweights, capital goods (CG), power and PSU stocks propelled it to an intra-day high of 14,682. After gyrating over 600 points during the intra-day trades, the Sensex gained 301 points to close at 14,657, while the Nifty ended 81 points higher at 4,414.

However, the market breadth was positive. Of the 2,732 stocks traded on the BSE 1,551 stocks advanced, 1,108 stocks declined and 73 stocks ended unchanged.

The BSE CG index led the pack and gained 3.84% followed by the BSE Power index (up 3.40%), the BSE PSU index (up 3.27%), the BSE Oil & Gas index (up 3.26%) and the BSE Bankex (up 3.26%). The BSE Auto & FMCG indexes closed with marginal losses.

JP Associates was the star performer among the heavyweights and the stock soared 8.67% at Rs170.45. Among the other major gainers, SBI advanced 6.05% at Rs1,500.30, HDFC jumped 5.51% at Rs2,402.20, Reliance Infra rose 4.71% at Rs1,010.60, BHEL moved up by 4.61% at Rs1,756.50, Reliance Industries advanced 4.24% at Rs2,299.75, Wipro gained 3.99% at Rs432.60 and Tata Steel added 3.67% at Rs176.70. However, Reliance Communications was down by 12.65% followed by Tata Power, Maruti Suzuki India, Hindustan Unilever, ACC, Tata Motors, Hindalco and ITC- all inched lower.

CG stocks were in demand and scaled higher. Suzlon Energy soared 7.14% at Rs238.70, Kalpataru flared up 6.35% at Rs805.60, Crompton Greaves added 5.56% at Rs249.75, Siemens gained 5.28% at Rs575.60, Punj Lloyd and BHEL was up 4.61% at Rs1,756.50.

Over 3.78 crore Reliance Natural Resources shares changed hands on the BSE followed by IFCI (2.28 crore shares), Ispat Industries (2.04 crore shares), Cybermate (2.02 crore shares), Reliance Communications (1.44crore shares) and Nagarjuna Fertilisers (1.07 crore shares).