Volatile but buoyant

The market wiped out losses of over 149 points incurred in the first half after a strong bout of buying led by JP Associates, Hindalco Industries and DLF triggered a wide-spread buying. In a highly volatile trading session, Sensex resumed 125 points lower at 9,111 following weakness in Asian indices and crashed to the day's low of 9,087 on relentless selling. While the market was on a recovery path thereafter, Sensex witnessed a sharp turnaround in afternoon, as gains in heavyweights, realty, metal and oil stocks propelled it to an intra-day high of 9,438. After gyrating 351 points during intra-day trades, Sensex gained 188 points to close at 9,424, while Nifty ended 51 points higher at 2,875.



The market breadth was positive. Of the 2,500 stocks traded on BSE, 1,391 stocks advanced, 1009 stocks declined and 100 stocks ended unchanged. BSE Realty led the pack and gained 4.32% followed by BSE Metal (up 4.05%) and BSE Oil (up 3.58%).



JP Associates was the star performer among the heavyweights and the stock soared 9.63% at Rs76.25. Among other major gainers, DLF advanced 7.39% at Rs177.20, Hindalco Industries jumped 6.51% at Rs49.05, State Bank of India rose 5.05% at Rs1152.20, Reliance Communications moved up by 5.03% at Rs170.20, Reliance Infrastructure advanced 4.85% at Rs582.30, Maruti Suzuki India gained 4.81% at Rs571 and Reliance Industries added 4.51% at Rs1325.20. However, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd, Tata Motors and Infosys inched lower.


Over 3.73 crore shares of Satyam Computer Services changed hands on BSE followed by Unitech (2.24 crore shares), Suzlon Energy (1.83 crore shares), Reliance Natural Resources (1.38 crore shares) and JP Associates (1.11 crore shares)