Sensex closes marginally higher

Today's major news

Mahindra & Mahindra plans Scorpio’s successor; the stock surged 2.39%

Jaihind Projects bags orders worth Rs25 crore; the stock closed 0.54% higher

Larsen & Toubro wins orders worth Rs2,325 crore; the stock closed 1.04% lower

Raj Television ventured into movie distribution platform; the stock rose 1.20%

KEI in pact with Brugg Kabel AG, Switzerland; the stock jumped 4.03%.

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Events Update

DB Corp lists on BSE at Rs250, 18% premium on the issue price. The day’s low was Rs235.50 and the day’s high was Rs274.60. The stock closed at Rs265.90, up by 25.42% with volumes of 19,917,826 shares on the BSE.

Post-market summary

Global signals

European stocks opened lower, as energy stocks fell on the back of decline in oil prices. FTSE 100 was trading 19 points lower at 5503 at the time of writing this report.

Among major Asian indices, all the indices closed higher except Jakarta Composite that fell marginally. SGX Nifty closed 13 points higher.

In the US, the investor would be eagerly waiting for data related to Challenger job cuts for December, ADP Employment Report for December, ISM Service data for December and Crude inventories as on December 31, 2009.

Indian indices

Sensex ended the day with marginal gains of 15 points or 0.08%. Owing to mixed performance by global indices, Sensex that opened 33 points higher soon turned negative and swung between red and green throughout the day. The day’s low was 17637 and the high was 17790. At finishing line, Sensex closed marginally higher, by 15 points, at 17686. Nifty ended the session at 5282, up by 4 points.

Market sentiment

The market breadth was almost neutral. Of the 2,970 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,495 stocks advanced, whereas 1,400 stocks declined. Seventy five stocks closed unchanged.

Sectoral & stock screening

Health care and realty stocks witnessed some investor interest with the BSE HC and BSE Realty up by 2.04% and 1.43% respectively. Information technology stocks have been under pressure and the sector index, BSE IT, was down by 1.41% for the day.

On stocks’ front, Adani Enterprises was the star stock of the day posting gains of 10.40% followed by Financial Technologies that surged by 6.45% and Indiabulls Financial Services that rose by 5.66%. Among losers, National Aluminium slid the most by 5.91%, followed by Maruti Suzuki India that fell by 3.50% and Apollo Hospitals that shed 3.44%.

Viewing volumes

Ispat Industries was the most actively traded share with over 1.25 crore shares changing hands on the BSE followed by wind turbine maker Suzlon Energy (0.90 crore shares), industrial finance company IFCI (0.83 crore shares), realty company Unitech (0.74 crore shares), and ADAG group company Reliance Natural Resources (0.70 crore shares).