Oil stocks rally

The market undid most of the day’s losses towards the close. Taking lead from weak global indices the 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 the Sensex touched the day's low of 14017 by afternoon amid choppy session. However, the Sensex recovered shrugging off weakness in the early trades on substantial buying towards the close and ended the session at 14324, down two points. Nifty ended 12 points higher at 4247.

The market breadth was negative. Of the 2,639 stocks traded on BSE, 1,455 stocks declined, whereas 1,116 stocks advanced. Sixty eight stocks ended unchanged. Most of the sectoral indices ended lower. Even those that were up were so only marginally. The BSE Bankex was down 2.14% followed by the BSE Metal (down 1.52%) and the BSE CD index (down 1.44%). On the other hand, the BSE Oil & Gas and the BSE PSU rallied sharply by 2% each.

Select counters logged steady gains. Grasim Industries rose 4.13% to Rs2,228.65, ONGC jumped 3.30% to Rs1,026.45, Reliance Industries gained 3.26% to trade at Rs2,016.05 and Tata Motors moved up 2.70% to Rs342.60. However several index heavyweights slipped into the red and ended with losses. ICICI Bank declined 4.05% to trade at Rs697.45, HDFC Bank dropped 3.55% to Rs1,485.55, Hindalco Industries slumped 3.32% to Rs81.55, ITC shed 3.11% to Rs196.50, Sterlite Industries lost 2.82% to Rs577.20, DLF lost 2.06% to Rs316.40, Larsen & Toubro slipped 1.62% to Rs1,485.95 and Infosys Technologies was down 1.12% to Rs1,746.05.

Over 2.38 crore shares of Unitech changed hands on the BSE followed by IFCI (2.26 crore shares), Suzlon Energy (2.20 crore shares), Reliance Natural Resources (1.67 crore shares) and Cals Refineries (1.48 crore shares).