Market regains as capital goods surge

Despite getting mixed signals from Asian markets the Sensex resumed on a positive note at 14419, up 21 points. But it soon lost momentum as traders took to profit booking and touched the day's low of 14372. The market gained momentum in the mid-morning trades after a hectic upsurge in capital goods, consumer durables and oil stocks that lifted the Sensex to positive territory. The buying remained stock-specific thereafter as investors remained on the sidelines, expecting a further fall. As trading progressed, the mood turned extremely buoyant in the afternoon on hectic buying in select large cap stocks and the Sensex touched the intra-day high of 14530. Buying was also seen in a number of mid-cap and small cap stocks. Buoyancy among heavyweights towards the close ensured that the Sensex moved past the 14500 mark and ended the session with a surge of 110 points at 14508. The Nifty rose 36 points to close at 4293.

The breadth of the market was positive. Out of a total of 2,670 stocks traded on the BSE today, 1,346 stocks posted gains, 1,217 stocks were down in the red and 107 stocks remained unchanged. Among the sectoral indices, the BSE CG index jumped 2.81% at 10,896 followed by the BSE HC index (up 1.70% at 3858), the BSE CD index (up 1.59% at 3943) and the BSE Oil & Gas index (up 1.19% at 7793).

Barring a few select counters, most of the heavyweights ended at higher levels. Among the blue chips, Cipla shot up by 4.95% at Rs219, BHEL soared 4.86% at Rs2,856, L&T surged 4% at Rs1,857, Ranbaxy advanced by 2.17% at Rs390, Reliance communication added 2.05% at Rs521, Reliance Industries moved up 1.85% at Rs1,755, HDFC Bank scaled up 1.78% at Rs1,145 and SBI was up 1.22% at Rs1,322. Among the laggards, HDFC dropped 1.72% at Rs1,813 and Gujarat Ambuja Cement shed 1.03% at Rs115 while NTPC, Infosys, ITC, Maruti Udyog, Bajaj Auto and ICICI Bank closed marginally lower.

Capital goods stocks were in the limelight and closed with strong gains. Reliance Industrial Infrastructure vaulted 5% at Rs499, Crompton Greaves soared 4.54% at Rs251, Carborundum Universal surged 4.14% at Rs173 and Lakshmi Machine Works advanced by 3.93% at Rs2,755.

Over 1.83 crore Reliance Natural Resources shares changed hands on the BSE followed by IFCI (96.70 lakh shares), NOCIL (87.59 lakh shares), Orbit Corporation (84.79 lakh shares) and Sunflag Iron & Steel (74.32 lakh shares).

Orbit Corporation clocked a turnover of Rs208 crore on the BSE followed by Unitech (Rs150 crore), Reliance Industries (Rs149 crore), Advanta (Rs129 crore) and India Infoline (Rs122 crore).