IT and capital goods stocks help market recover

After gyrating almost 319 points for the day the Sensex closed the session with a gain of 120 points for the day. The market had a gloomy start, with the weak global indices dampening the trading sentiment here and triggering an all-round selling. The Sensex touched the day's low of 14046, down 172 points, within a few minutes of the opening bell. The melting metal prices in international markets also acted as a negative factor. But, the resumption of buying at lower levels and fall in the inflation rate helped the Sensex to recover the lost ground and the index entered into the positive territory by afternoon. Information technology (IT) and capital goods stocks provided enough support to the Sensex to touch the intra-day high of 14365. Satyam Computer, Infosys, Wipro and L&T were the major gainers on the back of buying interest. The Sensex finally settled at 14338, up 120 points, and the Nifty closed the session at 4248, up 43 points.

The breadth of the market was positive, with gainers outnumbering the losers in the ratio of 1.22:1. Of the 2,660 stocks traded on the BSE 1,418 stocks advanced, 1,153 stocks declined and 89 stocks ended unchanged. Among the sectoral indices the BSE CG Index flared up by 2.53%, the BSE IT Index rose 2.49% and the BSE Teck Index moved up by 1.87%.

Barring a few all Sensex stocks ended at higher levels. HDFC flared up 3.64% at Rs1,819, Satyam Computer bounced back sharply and shot up by 3.48% at Rs472, Infosys zoomed 2.57% at Rs1,986, Tata Motors moved up by 2.25% at Rs728, L&T scaled up 2.20% at Rs1,739, Reliance Communication surged by 2.14% at Rs504, Wipro jumped by 1.99% at Rs542 and SBI gained 1.05% at Rs1,298.

IT stocks were in demand and attracted strong buying support. NIIT Tech spurted by 10.30% at Rs606, Webel-Sl Energy shot up by 8.90% at Rs382, Patni Computers flared up 7.83% at Rs549, Tech Mahindra surged 5.41% at Rs1,562, Logix Micro zoomed 4.99% at Rs214, Kernex Micro jumped 4.88% at Rs151 and CMC jumped by 4.18% at Rs1,228.

Over 2.26 crore Reliance Natural Resources shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Reliance Petroleum (61.93 lakh shares), Nagarjuna Fertilizers (56.81 lakh shares), IFCI (55.08 lakh shares) and Idea Cellular (51.80 lakh shares).

Value-wise Suzlon Energy clocked a turnover of Rs230 crore followed by Advanta (Rs179 crore), Reliance Industries (Rs147 crore), Devi's Lab (Rs139 crore) and Reliance Capital (Rs116 crore).