Charmed by Reliance breakthrough buzz

STOCKS REPORT

Reliance group stocks led the rally on Friday as the Sensex gained its highest since March 14. The buzz in the market is that the Ambani brothers are close to settling ownership dispute.

All Reliance group stocks, as a result, rallied pushing the Sensex to a two and a half month high of 6748.85, gaining 93.29 points.

The Nifty gained 29.6 points to close at 2094.25.

Brokers said, "Rumours of an impending settlement between the Ambani brothers led to a strong buying interest in all group companies on Friday. The buzz on the street is that the settlement news will be announced by Sunday."

Among Reliance group companies, Reliance Industries was up 4.38 per cent to close at to Rs 552.90, leading to a market cap rise by Rs 3,234 crore, from Rs 73,848 crore to Rs 77,083 crore.

Reliance Energy surged 3.26 per cent to Rs 530.04, while the Reliance Capital stock gained 5.11 per cent to Rs 208.85. The IPCL stock rose by 3.56 per cent to Rs 170.35, while Reliance Industrial Infrastructure surged 5.22 per cent to Rs 142.10.

Vikram Kotak, president, Techoshares and Stocks Ltd, said, "There are talks of Ambani brothers close to settling their ownership dispute which will be very positive for Reliance companies. However, the market is near to its top end of trading territory and worry of higher oil prices, growth slowdown, delay in monsoon and deteriorating global liquidity may send market into the correction mode. We expect the markets to trade between 6300-6800 range."

All the Reliance group companies witnessed a significant addition to the open interest position in the futures and options segment.

The buying spree spread to other frontline stocks with 23 of the 30-share Bombay Stock Exchange Sensex stocks ending positive. Among other big market pullers in Friday's trading, Zee Telefilms was up 4.97 per cent to Rs 147.95, Wipro was up 3.10 per cent to Rs 722.50, Infosys Technologies was up 2.61 per cent to Rs 2,258.80, Satyam gained 2.46 per cent to Rs 462.50 and Larsen & Toubro gained 2.43 per cent to Rs 1,110.90.

The breadth of the market turned positive with 908 stocks advancing as against 681 stocks declining. The volumes were moderate and accounted for Rs 2,111.05 crore on BSE and Rs 4,202.31 crore on the National Stock Exchange (NSE).

The BSE Oil and Gas index and BSE Tech index were the biggest gainers in Friday's trading.

ONGC gained 1.39 per cent to Rs 937.30, while BPCL ended 0.38 per cent lower at Rs 389.85 and the HPCL stock ended 0.65 per cent lower at Rs 331.15.

Foreign institutional investors were net buyers of Indian shares worth Rs 125.50 crore on Thursday while domestic mutual funds were net sellers to the tune of Rs 111 crore.

Among the losers in Friday's trading were-Guj Ambuja, down 0.94 per cent to Rs 443.80, Grasim Industries was down 0.93 per cent to Rs 1,102.05, Dr Reddy's was down 0.72 per cent to Rs 730.55, HPCL was down 0.65 per cent to Rs 331.15, HDFC was down 0.57 per cent to Rs 760.10 and HLL was down 0.27 per cent to Rs 146.75. Nucleus Software stock has been buzzing on the bourses on institutional buying. The stock of the banking product software company has appreciated 23 per cent in just two trading sessions to close at an all time high of Rs 280 on Friday.

While the market is clueless on what's brewing at the counter, a software sector analyst said being in a product cycle, the company is expected to register strong revenue flow in the next two quarters.