Bajaj Auto leads Sensex’ recovery

The local indices finished in the green even though the other Asian markets reported losses and witnessed high volatility for a major portion of the trading session. The Sensex plunged nearly 217 points in the early trades on massive selling in front-line stocks. Lower than expected inflation numbers and sustained buying in heavyweights, IT and auto stocks lifted the market sentiment and the Sensex touched an intra-day high of 13864. Thereafter, the market witnessed choppy trades and with some range-bound moves the Sensex slipped into the red in the afternoon again. The market bounced back from its lows towards the close, led by Bajaj Auto, Infosys Technologies, TCS, State Bank of India and NTPC. The Sensex finally ended the session with gains of 25 points at 13796. The Nifty ended the session at 4077 by adding 10 points.

The breadth of the market was neutral. Of the 2,626 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,266 stocks advanced, 1,281 stocks declined and 79 stocks ended unchanged. Among the sectoral indices the BSE IT index advanced by 0.94% at 4924 followed by the BSE Teck index (up 0.81% at 3666) and the BSE PSU index (up 0.62% at 6395). However, the BSE FMCG index, the BSE Metal index, the BSE CG index and the BSE CD index closed in negative territory.

Select blue chips notched up significant gains. Bajaj Auto jumped 4.20% to Rs2,719 on plans to split its business. Reliance Communication rose 2.86% at Rs478, NTPC advanced 2.51% at Rs155, SBI climbed 2.29% at Rs1,149, TCS surged 1.88% at Rs1,253, Infosys scaled up 1.40% at Rs2,000 and Ranbaxy added 1.26% at Rs391 while ICICI Bank, Reliance Industries and Tata Motors ended with marginal gains. Among the laggards ACC tumbled by 2.84% at Rs850 and Grasim dropped 2.42% at Rs2,429 while HLL, Gujarat Ambuja, Cipla, Hindalco, HDFC, Tata Steel, Reliance Energy and Wipro ended with marginal losses.

Over 2.26 crore Reliance Natural Resources shares changed hands on the BSE followed by IFCI (1.34 crore shares), Reliance Petroleum (1.17 crore shares), Nagarjuna Fertilizers (83.28 lakh shares) and Page Industries (65.76 lakh shares).

Value-wise Page Industries registered a turnover of Rs300 crore on the BSE followed by Reliance Industries (Rs209 crore), Reliance Communication (Rs125 crore), India Bulls (Rs121 crore) and Orbit Corporation (Rs111 crore).