Sensex recovers in late rally

The market recouped its lost ground in noon trades and rallied sharply thereafter, after a fall of about 91 points to the day's low of 18,537. The market was quiet in early trades as the second quarter performance of Infosys Technologies disappointed investors. IT stocks, which rallied over the past couple of sessions expecting the technology bellwether to surprise, were beaten down. However, the market trimmed losses as the trading progressed and zigzagged between positive and negative territory in late morning trades before taking a dip on renewed selling. The index shrugged off its bearish trend towards the closing hours and surged to another record high of 18,833 on healthy buying in auto, capital goods, and metal stocks. The Sensex finally ended 156 points higher at 18,814, while the Nifty gained 83 points to close at 5,525.

Among the sectoral indices the PSU index led the upsurge with gains of 3.094% at 8,778 followed by the BSE CG index (up 2.75% at 17,088), the BSE Auto index (up 2.69% at 5,604) and the BSE Metal (up 2.69% at 14,833). The market breadth was neutral. Of the 2,804 stocks traded on the BSE 1,354 stocks advanced, 1,378 stocks declined and 72 stocks ended unchanged.

Out of the 30 Sensex stocks, 23 managed to end in the green while seven stocks ended with losses. M&M registered solid gains and soared 7.62% at Rs814. ONGC jumped 5.66% at Rs1,066, Grasim shot up by 4.14% at Rs3,800, BHEL advanced 3.89% at Rs2,421, ACC moved up by 3.46% at Rs1,260, L&T added 3.40% at Rs3,487 and Hindalco gained 3.26% at Rs176. Among the laggards Satyam Computer dropped 7.50% at Rs448, Infosys shed 6.99% at Rs1,976, TCS declined by 4.72% at Rs1,072, Wipro fell 2.99% at Rs488 and Cipla slipped 1.14% at Rs191, while Dr Reddy's Lab and Bajaj Auto closed with marginal losses.

Over 5.25 crore Power Grid Corporation shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Reliance Natural Resources (2.11 crore shares), IFCI (1.99 crore shares), Reliance Petroleum (1.72 crore shares) and Ispat Industries (1.23 crore shares).

Reliance Industries registered a turnover of Rs604 crore on the BSE followed by Power Grid Corporation (Rs581 crore), Infosys (Rs483 crore), Reliance Capital (Rs386 crore) and Reliance Communication (Rs336 crore)