Market up on realty, consumer durables

The 30-stock index of BSE, Sensex, in lack of clear signals gyrated around 300 points in early trades. However, frenzied selling caused it to dip below 10200 mark to touch an intra-day low of 10172. Though the market erased most of its losses 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 10778. Sensex ended the session 207 points up at 10742, while Nifty moved up by 86 points to 3343.

Market breadth was extremely positive. Of the 2,552 stocks traded on the BSE 2,021 stocks advanced, whereas 468 stocks declined. Sixty three stocks ended unchanged. Of the 13 sectoral indices on BSE, only one (BSE Bankex) ended lower. Wiping its losses, BSE Realty moved up by 4.74% topping the list while BSE CD, occupying the second slot, up nearly 4.62%.

Several Sensex stocks registered decent gains. JP Associates flared up 8.71% at Rs106.05, National Thermal Power Corporation jumped by 6.70% at Rs196.75 Tata Motors gained 6.29% at Rs222.30 and Hindustan Unilever gained 6.06% at Rs 240.80. ITC, Larsen & Toubro, Wipro, Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Power and Sun Pharmaceutical Industries were up by more than 4-5% each. Among laggards, Mahindra & Mahindra shot up by 3.54% at Rs449.30, Hindalco Industries lost 2.92% at Rs58.20 and Reliance Communications gained 2.18% at Rs213.35. HDFC Bank, Bharat Heavy Electricals, Sterlite Industries, State Bank of India and Grasim Industries were down by 0.20-1% each.

Reliance Natural Resources attracted volumes of over 2.57 crore shares on BSE followed by Unitech (2.35 crore shares), United Breweries (2.12 crore shares) and Cals Refineries (1.98 crore shares)