Market up on IT and oil & gas

Taking lead from overseas stock markets, the 30-stock index of BSE, Sensex, in lack of clear signals gyrated around 100 points in early trades.

However, frenzied selling pressure caused it dip below 8050-mark to touch an intra-day low of 8047. Though the market erased most of its loss by noon trades, the pull-back from lower levels came toward the close, after a fresh bout of buying in several frontline stocks saw Sensex touch an intra-day high of 8348. Sensex ended the session 128 points up at 8326, while Nifty moved up by 43 points to 2620.

Market breadth was negative however. Of the 2,500 stocks traded on the BSE 1,419 stocks declined, whereas 993 stocks advanced. 88 stocks ended unchanged. Of the 13 sectoral indices on BSE, only three (BSE FMCG, BSE Realty and BSE Auto) ended lower. Wiping its losses, BSE IT moved up by 3..05% topping the list while BSE Teck, occupying the second slot, was up by nearly 2.44%.

Several Sensex stocks registered decent gains. HDFC flared up 6..32% at Rs1223.35, Hindalco Industries jumped by 4.38% at Rs39.30 and JP Associates gained 4.27% at Rs69.55. Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, ONGC, Tata Steel and Infosys were up by more than 3% each. Among laggards, Maruti Suzuki India shot up by 2.77% at Rs649.10, Hindustan Unilever added 2.65% at Rs223.95 and Ranbaxy Laboratories gained 2.15% at Rs141.30. ITC, DLF, Tata Motors, Tata Power and ICICI Bank were down by 0.11-1% each.

Satyam Computer Services attracted volumes of over 2.48 crore shares on BSE followed by ICICI Bank (1.52 crore shares), Cals Refineries (92 lakh shares) and Unitech (81 lakh shares).