Last minute buying lifts market

While majority of the global markets took a dip today, the domestic indices shrugged off the intra-day volatility and registered decent gains at close. The Sensex opened at 10,160 (185 points above its previous close) and advanced further to touch an intra-day high of 10,538 in the early trades. After displaying sideways movement for a while the Sensex tumbled sharply in the early noon trades to touch the day's low of 10,023, only 248 points up from its last close.

The last hour of the trading session witnessed hectic activity, before selective buying saw the Sensex end in the green with a gain of 248 points at 10,223. The Nifty, too, after a mixed outing, moved up 48 points to close at 3,123.

However, the broader market was negative. Of the 2,616 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,623 stocks declined whereas 938 stocks advanced. Fifty five stocks ended unchanged.

Among the sectoral indices, the BSE IT led the surge and rose 8.05% at 2,741. The BSE Teck, BSE Bankex, BSE FMCG and BSE HC were the other notable gainers while BSE Realty, BSE Power and BSE CG ended weak.

Buying was led by Tata Consultancy Services, which notched up gains of 9.47% at Rs497.15. Among the other gainers Wipro advanced 8.95% at Rs280.65, Satyam Computer Services added 8.67% at Rs289, Infosys Technologies moved up 7.92% at Rs1,297.80, HDFC Bank jumped by 5.94% at Rs1,084.85, HDFC gained 5.73% at Rs1878.35 and ICICI Bank was up 4.95% at Rs411.10. However, BHEL, Grasim Industries, DLF, ACC, Mahindra & Mahindra, Tata Power and Reliance Infrastructure were down by 1-8% each.

A sharp rally was witnessed in IT stocks today. HCL Technologies soared 10.23% at Rs172.90, Rolta India scaled up 9.74% at Rs186.55, Tech Mahindra surged 7.39% at Rs370.45 and Mphasis moved up 6.90% at Rs185.95. Oracle Financial Services Software, Patni Computer Systems and Moser Bear India also ended higher.

Over 1.17 crore shares of Reliance Natural Resources changed hands on the BSE followed by Reliance Petroleum (0.94 crore shares), Chambal Fertilisers and Chemicals (82.38 lakh shares), Cals Refineries (63.36 lakh shares) and Housing Development and Infrastructure (61.01 lakh shares).