Winning spree continues

The market wiped out a loss of over 40 points incurred in the first half after a strong bout of buying led by realty and auto stocks triggered a wide-spread buying. The Sensex started the day 91 points higher at 9,625 following weakness in US indices but crashed to the day's low of 9,495 on relentless selling. While the market recovered thereafter, Sensex witnessed a sharp turnaround in afternoon as gains in heavy weights, realty, auto and capital goods stocks propelled it to an intra-day high of 9,785. After gyrating 290 points during the intra-day trades, Sensex gained 183 points to close at 9,716, while the Nifty ended 57 points higher at 2,980.

The market breadth was positive. Of 2,539 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,644 stocks advanced whereas 810 stocks declined. Eighty five stocks ended unchanged. BSE Realty led the pack and gained 3.48% followed by BSE Auto (up 3.09%) and BSE CG (up 2.92%).

Satyam Computer Services was the star performer among the heavyweights and the stock soared 8.33% at Rs160.60. Among other major gainers, Reliance Communications advanced 7.16% at Rs228.10, JP Associates jumped 6.01% at Rs83.75, Mahindra & Mahindra rose 5.75% at Rs270.45 and Tata Motors moved up by 4.91% at Rs156.10. Sterlite Industries advanced 4.82% at Rs265.05, Ranbaxy Laboratories gained 4.09% at Rs241.70 and Reliance Infrastructure added 4.06% at Rs585.25. However, only Grasim Industries inched lower.

Over 4.32 crore shares of Bajaj Hindustan changed hands on the BSE followed by Unitech (2.71 crore shares), Reliance Natural Resources (2.32 crore shares), Suzlon Energy (1.90 crore shares) and Satyam Computer Services (1.71 crore shares).