Blue chips make merry

STOCKS REPORT

Value buying at lower levels helped the benchmark Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Sensex close higher. Blue chips saw good buying support with mid-cap counters also attracting attention.

Capital goods, pharma and consumer durables scrips were among the biggest gainers on Monday. The breadth of the market was positive with gainers outpacing losers 2:1. In the Sensex basket, 25 out of the 30 scrips closed higher.

Players said that after the correction seen on Friday, buying in bluechips as well as mid-caps helped the market record gains.

Institutions were buyers in frontline scrips while retail action was seen in the mid-cap counters. Opening in positive territory, the market witnessed some volatility, falling into negative territory briefly in intra-day trades, they added.

Brokers said that the positive sentiment was helped by the share buyback announcement by Reliance Industries. They added that the announcement was being seen as a move to reassure the company's investors. The Reliance scrips have seen a big fall in the last few weeks amid volatility.

Said a dealer from a local brokerage,"Players are looking for triggers to give direction to the market and all news is seeing some reaction."

He added that the market may see some rangebound action in the near term as profit taking at higher levels will cap gains.

Market players said that the mood remains optimistic on the back of sustained foreign fund inflows. Foreign funds were net buyers of Indian shares worth Rs 161.40 crore on Friday but domestic mutual funds cotinued to be sellers at Rs 6.80 crore, data released by the Securities and Exchange Board of India show.

The BSE Sensex hit a high of 6,409.52 points and a low of 6,345.87 in intra-day trades before closing at 6,403, up 56.52 points from Friday's close. Volumes were high in the cash segment of the bourses; the BSE reported a turnover of Rs 2,109.69 crore and the NSE reported a turnover of Rs 5,077.52 crore.

L&T was the biggest gainer in the Sensex basket, gaining 4.78 per cent to close at Rs 982.65, followed by Zee Telefilms, up 3.43 per cent to Rs 179.60, Cipla was up 2.63 per cent to Rs 306.75, Hero Honda gained 2.56 per cent to Rs 521.70 and Dr Reddy's Labs was up 2.49 per cent to Rs 860.20.