Sensex ends firm on Lower inflation numbers

The market continued its winning trend for the second consecutive session. Today, the market opened 75 points higher tracking the positive global cues and remained above 15,200 level for the major part of the session. Sustained buying thereafter in capital goods, cement and banking stocks helped the Sensex touch the intra-day high of 15,236, up 250 points to its previous close. The index also received support from State Bank of India and ACC. The market remained firm in mid-session trades on lower inflation numbers as inflation declined to 4.36% during the week ended July 21 as compared with 4.41% for the previous week as some essential food items like pulses, fruits and eggs turned cheaper. However, the market slipped towards the close on profit bookings in select frontline stocks and ended the session at 15,138, up 153 points. The broad based Nifty closed the session at 4,401 by adding 45 points.

The market breadth was positive. Of the 2,606 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,339 stocks advanced, 999 stocks declined and 68 stocks ended unchanged. All the sectoral indices ended higher. The BSE Realty index gained 2.15%, followed by the BSE CD index (up 2.09%), the BSE PSU index (up 1.56%) and the BSE CG index (up 1.44%).

Among the heavyweights, SBI soared 2.72% at Rs1,636, NTPC advanced 2.34% at Rs166, HDFC added 2.24% at Rs1,989, ACC scaled up 2.06% at Rs1,003, Grasim rose 1.78% at Rs1,961 and Hindalco jumped 1.75% at Rs162. Tata Steel, Maruti Udyog, ICICI Bank and Bajaj Auto gained over 1% each. Among the laggards Ranbaxy dropped 1.40% at Rs366, Dr Reddy's Lab lost 1.28% at Rs623, Ambuja Cement, Bharti Airtel, Reiance Industries and HDFC Bank were marginally down.

Realty stocks registered strong gains. Indiabulls Real Estate surged 4.96% at Rs538, Peninsula Land advanced 3.94% at Rs441, Akruti Nirman gained 2.78% at Rs551 and DLF soared 2.66% at Rs602.

Over 2.66 crore IFCI shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Reliance Natural Resources (83.76 lakh shares), Simplex Projects (67.19 lakh shares), Reliance Petroleum (42.32 lakh shares) and Manglore Chemicals (38.30 lakh shares).

Reliance Industries was the most actively traded counter on the BSE with a turnover of Rs193 crore followed by Simplex Projects (Rs188 crore), IFCI (Rs158 crore), GMR Infrastructure (Rs154 crore) and Unitech (Rs146 crore).