Sensex recovers dramatically

Today the market saw a smart rally despite weakness in global markets. Despite slipping over 700 points in early trades, the Sensex witnessed a relief rally led by across-the-spectrum buying. The index recovered from its lows and closed posstive, as value buying emerged at lower levels. The Sensex received major support from banking, oil & gas and power stocks. The market gathered steam towards the close and the Sensex crossed the mark of 13,300 and touched the day's high of 13,347 before closing at 13,263, up 52 points. The Nifty too bounced back sharply and advanced 30 points to close at 4,038.

The breadth of the market was extremely negative, as of the 2,690 stocks traded on the BSE, where only 676 stocks advanced, 1,927 stocks advanced. 70 stocks ended unchanged. Most of the sectoral indices closed with significant gains. The BSE Bankex was the major gainer and soared 2.68% followed by the BSE Oil & Gas index (up 2.36%) and the BSE CG index (up 0.95%). However, the BSE Realty and BSE CD index slipped over 4% each. The BSE IT index, BSE Teck index, BSE HC index and the BSE Metal index closed with marginal losses.

Attracting strong buying support, Sterlite Industries surged by 3.43% at Rs454.50, HDFC Bank shot up by 3.17% at Rs1,222, Reliance Industries jumped by 3.16% at Rs1,932.85, NTPC advanced by 3.05% at Rs174, ICICI Bank scaled up 2.78% at Rs575.85, Maruti Suzuki India zoomed 2.70% at Rs718.45, Mahindra & Mahindra added 2.46% at Rs550.55, Reliance Infrastructure vaulted by 2.43% at Rs849.60, ONGC firmed up by 2.14% at Rs999.15 and ACC climbed 2.02% at Rs601.35. Among the laggards, Ranbaxy Laboratories slipped 10.06% at Rs340.95, Jaiprakash Associates shed 6.73% at Rs127.40, Satyam Computer Services declined by 4.16% at Rs335, while Infosys Technologies, Tata Steel, DLF, Tata Power and HDFC fell 1-4% each.

Banking stocks witnessed sustained buying support. Indian Overseas Bank soared 7.49% at Rs110.45, Bank of Baroda added 5.80% at Rs327.35, Kotak Bank scaled up by 4.72% at Rs579.45 and Punjab National Bank gained 4.38% at Rs517.

Over 1.97 crore shares of Reliance Natural Resources changed hands on the BSE followed by IFCI (1.34 crore shares), S Kumars (1.33 crore shares), KS Oils (1.20 crore shares) and Jaiprakash Associates (1.10 crore shares).