Capital goods carry the day

Market recovered most of the day’s losses towards the close of the session, after shedding 41 points in early trades from the day's high of 9706. Tracking weak global indices, Sensex opened marginally below its previous close. The mood remained bearish and the market slipped on profit booking in index pivotals, public sector units and health care stocks. The market once again witnessed selling pressure and Sensex touched the day's low of 9430 by afternoon amid a choppy session. However, the index recovered, shrugging off weakness on substantial buying in realty and oil stocks towards the close and ended the session at 9668, up 197 points. Nifty gained by 46 points to close at 2984.

The market breadth was positive. Of the 2,586 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,263 stocks advanced, 1,219 stocks declined and 104 stocks ended unchanged. Of the 13 sectoral indices, BSE Realty (index of realty shares) flared up by 6.32% followed by BSE Oil & Gas (up 3.66%), BSE Metal (up 3.31%) and BSE Bankex (up 3%). Other indices were up 0.18-1% each.

Among Sensex stocks, JP Associates was the leading gainer and its stock price soared by 7.51% at Rs84.45. Among other stocks, Tata Power advanced 7.12% at Rs740.20, Sterlite Industries jumped 6.48% at Rs347.35, while DLF, Reliance Infrastructure, Reliance Industries, Tata Steel, Reliance Communications, HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank closed with sharp gains of 3-6%. Among laggards, National Thermal Power Corporation slipped 2.77% at Rs179.95, Bharti Airtel shed 2.05% at Rs591.05, ONGC by 2.02% at Rs763.70, Hindustan Unilever fell by 1.88% at Rs234.70 and Tata Motors lost 1.27% at Rs160.

Over 3.66 crore Unitech shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Cals Refineries (2.62 crore shares), Crompton Greaves (1.27 crore shares), Reliance Natural Resources (1.14 crore shares) and Suzlon Energy (1.12 crore shares).