Sensex sways 113 pts in volatile trading

In extremely volatile trade, which saw the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Sensex in negative territory for most of the day, late buying interest in select heavyweights pulled up the index to close yesterday with a net gain of 12.41 points over Friday's historic 6,000-plus close.

Moving in an intra-day range of 113 points, the Sensex closed at an all-time high of 6,039. But the market breadth was negative, with 681 advances versus 1,224 declines on the BSE.

The Sensex touched a high of 6,078.11 and a low of 5,964.65 in intra-day trades today. It has gained 200 points in the first three sessions of 2004. The National Stock Exchange S&P CNX Nifty gained 8.95 points to close at 1,955.

Market sources said today's trading was marked by extreme caution, with investors on edge after a sustained bull run over the past few weeks.

Traders said profit booking was most obvious in automobile and metal stocks, which led the recent rally. Traded volumes, too, were lower at 245 million shares today, compared with 260 million shares on Friday.

Reliance Industries was down 1.07 per cent at Rs 579.45 and Hindustan Lever 0.79 per cent at Rs 213.85, limiting gains in the index.

Private sector banking pivotal ICICI Bank was up 1.55 per cent to close at Rs 311.60 and HDFC Bank 0.54 per cent at Rs 365.15.

Technology bellwether Infosys Technologies rose 3.88 per cent to close at Rs 5,892.35 ahead of its quarterly results on Friday. Satyam Computer was up 0.35 per cent at Rs 376.75.