Capital goods rally

The market undid most of the day’s losses towards the close. Taking lead from weak global indices Sensex resumed lower from its previous close and the mood remained sombre with market slipping on profit booking in index pivotals, metal and banking stocks. The market once again witnessed selling pressure and Sensex touched the day's low of 8619 by afternoon amid choppy session. However Sensex recovered shrugging off weakness in the early trades on substantial buying towards the close and ends the session at 8822, down 21 points. Nifty ends 3 points at 2734.

The market breadth was negative. Of the 2,501 stocks traded on BSE, 1,613 stocks declined, whereas 790 stocks advanced. Ninety eight stocks ended unchanged. Most of the sectoral indices ended lower. Even those that were up were so only marginally. BSE Metal was down 2.31% followed by BSE Bankex (down 1.36%) and BSE PSU index (down 0.71%). On the other hand, BSE CD (consumer durable index) rallied sharply by 0.73%.

Select counters logged steady gains. Mahindra & Mahindra rose by 4.92% at Rs295.10, Ranbaxy Laboratories added 3.94% at Rs214.85, Grasim Industries gained 3.01% at Rs1,384.65 and DLF moved up by 1.48% at Rs157.35. However several index heavyweights slipped into the red and ended with losses. HDFC declined by 4.78% at Rs1289, Tata Steel dropped 4.46% at Rs160.55, Sterlite Industries slumped 1.85% at Rs243.80, State Bank of India shed 1.75% at Rs1026.25, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries lost 1.72% at Rs1005, Tata Consultancy Services lost 1.57% at Rs466.50, Wipro slipped by 1.44% at Rs212.20 and Tata Motors was down 1.23% at Rs132.10.

Over 1.14 crore shares of Cals Refineries changed hands on BSE followed by Unitech (86.20 lakh shares), Satyam Computer Services (82.90 lakh shares), DLF (60.59 lakh shares) and ICICI Bank (49 lakh shares).