Sensex measly up

Starting firm on strong global cues, the Sensex rallied sharply in morning trades touching an intra-day high of 14994. Consumer durable and metal stocks moved up sharply, whereas realty and power stocks remained subdued. The index however saw profit booking towards mid of the day and entered negative territory to touch the day's low of 14608. At one point of time, the market appeared to be heading towards a negative close on the back of strong bout of selling. But the market recovered on buying in few pivotal stocks and the Sensex closed at 14875, up 34 points. The 50-stock index, Nifty, ended the session at 4525, down 5 points.

The market breadth, the number of advancing shares to declining ones, was positive. Of the 2,850 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,664 stocks advanced, whereas 1,130 stocks declined. Fifty six stocks ended unchanged. Seven of the 13 sectoral indices on the BSE remained above their yesterday’s close. BSE CD gained 2.63% followed by BSE Metal (up 2.48%), BSE Auto (up 1.37%) and BSE CG (capital goods; up 1.37%). However, BSE Realty (down 2%), BSE Power, BSE PSU, BSE Bankex, BSE Teck and BSE Oil & Gas closed with marginal losses.

Among the Sensex stocks, Tata Steel was the leading gainer, soaring 8.24% at Rs474.05 for the day. HDFC advanced 4.19% at Rs2,394.95, Sterlite Industries jumped 3.87% at Rs690.50, Tata Motors shot up by 3.31% at Rs349.15, Mahindra & Mahindra added 2.10% at Rs725.40, while State Bank of India, Grasim Industries, ICICI Bank, Larsen & Toubro and Sun Pharmaceutical Industries closed with marginal gains. Among laggards, ACC tumbled 5.83% at Rs784.50, Ranbaxy Laboratories shed 4.50% at Rs262.25 and Reliance infrastructure declined by 4.34% at Rs1244.45. Tata Power, DLF and National Thermal Power Corporation lost 1-3% each.

Over 6.85 crore shares of Satyam Computer Services changed hands on the BSE followed by Essar Oil (5.78 crore shares), Ispat Industries (4.68 crore shares), Unitech (3.25 crore shares) and IFCI (3.23 crore shares).