Sensex gains amid sharp volatility

The Sensex seems to be determined to make new highs in every session as bulls eye the 16k mark. But today's rally was mainly backed by the upsurge in few select heavyweight stocks. Tracking positive global cues, the market resumed with a gap of 70 points and immediately breached the 15,850 mark to touch another record high of 15,869. The strong bullish sentiment kept the Sensex in the positive territory throughout the trading session, but a bout of selling in realty and auto stocks dragged the index to the day's low of 15,742 in the afternoon. Despite rupee touching the nine-year high of 40.22 against the US Dollar, the information technology stocks seemed unaffected. The market, however, recovered some of its losses towards the close on buying in few heavyweights, information technology and capital goods stocks and the Sensex finally ended the session at 15,795, up 63 points. The Nifty closed a point up at 4,621.

The breadth of the market was, however, weak. Of the 2,740 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,777 stocks declined, 903 stocks advanced and 60 stocks ended unchanged. On the sectoral front, the BSE CG index was up 1.26% at 13,767 and the BSE IT index gained 1.24% at 4,963. However BSE FMCG index slipped 1.50% at 1,843, the BSE Auto index down 1.40% at 5,126, while the BSE CD index, BSE HC index, the BSE Oil & Gas index and the BSE Realty index were marginally down.

Action in select index heavyweights lifted the market. Reliance Energy led the pack and shot up by 8.46% to Rs775. Satyam Computer soared 5.42% at Rs518, BHEL surged 3.96% at Rs1,835, NTPC flared up by 3.64% at Rs164, HDFC Bank jumped by 2.50% at Rs1,251, L&T added 2.03% at Rs2668, Infosys advanced by 1.53% at Rs1,977, Bajaj Auto moved up by 1.03% at Rs2,448 and Hindalco was up 0.92% at Rs187. However, M&M slipped 3.23% at Rs797, Tata Motors fell by 3.09% at Rs747 and HUL was down 2.13% at Rs200.

Over 1.56 crore Housing Development & Infrastructure shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Suryachakra Power Corporation (1.32 crore shares), IFCI (1.12 crore shares), Spice Telecom (1.09 crore shares) and Reliance Natural Resources (87.16 lakh shares).

Value-wise, Housing Development & Infrastructure registered a turnover of Rs878 crore on the BSE followed by Reliance communication (Rs244 crore), GMR Infrastructure (Rs168 crore), DLF (Rs168 crore) and Reliance Industries (Rs162 crore).