Volatile but buoyant

The market wiped out a loss of over 163 points incurred in the first half after a strong bout of buying led by information technology (IT)and banking stocks triggered a wide-spread buying. The Sensex started the day 147 points higher at 13,007 following weakness in Asian indices and crashed to the day's low of 12,697 on relentless selling. While the market recovered thereafter, the Sensex witnessed a sharp turnaround in afternoon as gains in heavyweights, IT, banking and consumer durable stocks propelled it to an intra-day high of 13,204. After gyrating 507 points during the intra-day trades, the Sensex gained 195 points to close at 13,056, while the Nifty ended 30 points higher at 3,951.

The market breadth was positive. Of the 2,672 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,476 stocks advanced whereas 1,123 stocks declined. Seventy three stocks ended unchanged. The BSE IT index led the pack and gained 3.97% followed by BSE Bankex (up 3.23%) and BSE CD (up 2.95%).

Satyam Computer Services was the star performer among the heavyweights and the stock soared 7.47% at Rs318.75. Among other major gainers, JP Associates advanced 7.02% at Rs118.90, HDFC Bank jumped 5.26% at Rs1,294, Grasim Industries rose 4.63% at Rs1,765.70 and Tata Power moved up by 4.46% at Rs946.50. Infosys Technologies advanced 4.03% at Rs1,453.90, ICICI Bank gained 3.10% at Rs551.45 and Tata Steel added 3.07% at Rs438.65. However, Larsen & Toubro, DLF and Reliance Industries inched lower.

Over 1.23 crore shares of Reliance Natural Resources changed hands on the BSE followed by IFCI (0.81 crore shares), JP Associates (0.71 crore shares), Chambal Fertilisers and Chemicals (0.55 crore shares) and Ispat Industries (0.49 crore shares).