Bulls strike back

After a subdued trend in the last week, the Sensex staged a recovery today and the Nifty scaled new high. The bulls were back in action after closing flat on Friday, as the market registered sharp gains on the back of all-round buying support. Taking a cue from the buoyant international indices the Sensex resumed 60 points above its previous close at 14363 on the back of strong buying in heavyweight, oil, metal and fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) stocks. However, automobile, consumer durables and IT witnessed losses. This buoyancy triggered a major rally that propelled the index to an intra-day high of 14451 in the afternoon. Though the Sensex held firm above 14400 for a major portion of the trading session, it finally closed at 14419, up 115 points. The Nifty advanced 46 points to close at its all-time high at 4261.

The breadth of the market was positive on the BSE, with the gainers outpacing the losers in the ratio of 1.17:1. Of the 2,663 stocks traded on the BSE 1,395 stocks advanced, 1,194 stocks declined and 74 stocks ended unchanged. Out of 11 sectoral indices on the BSE, seven indices ended in positive territory. The BSE Oil & Gas index ended firm with gains of 3.01% at 7832 while the BSE Metal index rose 2.54% at 10502. The BSE FMCG index added 2.08% at 1912. However, the BSE IT index, the BSE CD index, the BSE Auto index and the BSE Teck index ended weak.

Action in several index heavyweights lifted the market. Reliance Energy led the pack and shot up by 7.90% at Rs552. Tata Steel soared 5.39% at Rs663, Reliance Industries surged 3.66% at Rs1,761, HDFC Bank flared up by 2.89% at Rs1,103, ONGC jumped by 2.67% at Rs934, ITC added 2.40% at Rs171, Reliance Communication advanced by 2.11% at Rs506, SBI moved up by 1.59% at Rs1,347 and Maruti Udyog was up 1.58% at Rs820. IT stocks, however, came under sharp selling pressure. Wipro at Rs535, Satyam Computers at Rs448 and Infosys at Rs1,961 dropped over 1% each. Tata Motors at Rs725 and Bajaj Auto at Rs2,248 were down around 2% each.

Oil stocks rallied sharply, BPCL shot up by 4.11% at Rs391, Essar Oil soared 3.94% at Rs57, Petronet LNG flared up by 3.28% at Rs54, Reliance Natural Resources added 3.12% at Rs31 and Reliance Petroleum was up 3.09% at Rs95.

Over 1.42 crore Reliance Energy shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Tata Teleservices (1.13 crore shares), Reliance Natural Resources (1.04 crore shares), IFCI (79.38 lakh shares), and Cairn India (71.92 lakh shares).

Value-wise Reliance Energy registered a turnover of Rs732 crore on the BSE followed by Adlabs (Rs293 crore), Reliance Capital (Rs177 crore), United Spirits (Rs175 crore) and Reliance Industries (Rs172 crore).