Realty and IT push market

Taking lead from overseas stock markets, the 30-stock index of BSE, Sensex, in lack of clear signals gyrated around 150 points in early trades.

However, frenzied selling pressure caused it dip below 9600-mark to touch an intra-day low of 9546. 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 9922. Sensex ended the session 193 points up at 9902, while Nifty moved up by 39 points to 3060.

Market breadth was positive however. Of the 2,463 stocks traded on the BSE 1,823 stocks advanced, whereas 558 stocks declined. Eighty two stocks ended unchanged. Of the 13 sectoral indices on BSE, only three (BSE FMCG, BSE HC and BSE CG) ended lower. Wiping its losses, BSE Realty moved up 5.41% topping the list, while BSE IT, occupying the second slot, was up by nearly 3.17%.

Several Sensex stocks registered decent gains. Ranbaxy Laboratories flared up 7.73% at Rs178.40, HDFC jumped by 6.70% at Rs1505.80 and Reliance Infrastructure gained 6.64% at Rs549.55. DLF, ICICI Bank, Infosys Technologies, Tata Power and Reliance Industries were up by more than 3% each. Among laggards, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries moved down by 4.23% at Rs1065.30, Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd lost 2.15% at Rs1,472.05 and Grasim Industries declined 2.15% at Rs141.30. Bharti Airtel, Sterlite Industries, National Thermal Power Corporation, Hindustan Unilever and ITC were down by 1% each.

Unitech attracted volumes of over 1.75 crore shares on BSE followed by Suzlon Energy (1.66 crore shares), Reliance Natural Resources (1.26 crore shares) and Cals Refineries (1.03 crore shares).