Metals steel the show

The stock market witnessed strong volatility, swinging 294 points during intra-day trades, as shares gyrated sharply between zones. Taking cue from mixed Asian indices, the Sensex started on a positive note at 14694, but failed to sustain its gains, as a sharp bout of profit-taking pushed the index below 14500 mark to an intra-day low of 14470. While the market remained lacklustre with a negative bias for some time, the Sensex rolled back to the green by mid-noon trades on renewed buying support and surged to an intra-day high of 14764. However, a fresh round of profit-taking towards the fag end saw the Sensex pare its gains and end at 14658, up only 13 points, while Nifty added 7 points to close at 4349.



The market breadth, the number of advancing shares to declining ones, was positive. Of the 2,692 stocks traded on BSE 1,452 stocks advanced, whereas 1,150 stocks declines. Ninety stocks remained unchanged. Of the 13 sectoral indices, BSE Metal gained 3.26%, while BSE PSU, BSE Realty and BSE HC ended at higher levels. BSE CG, BSE Auto, BSE Teck, BSE Bankex and BSE FMCG were the sectoral indices posting losses for the day.



Select heavyweights edged higher on decent buying support. ONGC rose 7.02% at Rs1,126, Tata Steel jumped 6.39% at Rs420.15, Grasim Industries advanced 4.20% at Rs2,401.75, Sterlite Industries added 3.75% at Rs634.10, DLF gained 3.12% at Rs335.75 and Sun Pharmaceutical Industries gained 2.46% at Rs1,145.85. However, select front-line stocks came under selling pressure. Bharat Heavy Electricals was the major loser and lost 3.03% at Rs2,149.90. Reliance Industries declined 2.29% at Rs2,010.15, Bharati Airtel dropped 2.27% at Rs804.10 and Reliance Communications shed 1.83% at Rs293.10.


Over 1.48 crore shares of Ispat Industries changed hands on BSE followed by Satyam Computer Services (1.47 crore shares), Suzlon Energy (1.24 crore shares), NIIT (1.23 crore shares) and Unitech (1.17 crore shares).