Late buying bolsters

STOCKS REPORT

Recording its third straight rise, the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Sensex gained 0.77 per cent (42.43 points) to close at 5,571.37 today.

Across-the-board buying, specially in blue chips helped the Sensex close in the positive territory despite witnessing volatility, touching a low of 5,495.31 and a high of 5,578.74 in intra-day trades today.

The National Stock Exchange (NSE) Nifty gained 14.55 points to close at 1,762.05.

The breadth of the market reflected the positive sentiment with gainers outpacing losers 1,111:578, though turnover was low in the cash segment. The BSE recorded a turnover of Rs 1,960.68 crore and turnover on the NSE was Rs 4,214.60 crore.

Says a dealer from a local brokerage, "The market seems to be recovering after witnessing selling pressure in the last few days."

He adds that buying at lower level was expected as fiscal year end pressure rise. Liquidity is also expected to increase with the listing of a slew of public offerings recently, say market sources.

Opening steady, the market lost ground on selling pressure in early afternoon trades but recovered on fresh buying, specially in old economy and blue chip counters.

Banking counters were among the big gainers with the BSE Bankex index up 2.94 per cent to 2,984.36. The capital goods index was up 2.78 per cent while the PSU index gained 1.61 per cent.

State Bank of India was up 2.55 per cent to Rs 608.25 and ICICI Bank was up 5.27 per cent to Rs 299.65.

Heavyweights Hindustan Lever was up 1.11 per cent to Rs 149.75 and Reliance Industries was up 0.61 per cent to Rs 528.65.

Tech stocks lost ground on profit booking after recent gains and the recent appreciation of the rupee against the US dollar also affected sentiment, according to market sources.

The BSE TECk index lost 0.69 per cent to 1,191.61. Satyam Computer was down 2.06 per cent to Rs 314.05, Infosys Technologies was down 1.58 per cent to Rs 5,216.40 and Wipro slipped 1.21 per cent to Rs 1,410.60.

BHEL was up 5.24 per cent at Rs 593 and Tata Power was up 4.74 per cent to Rs 387.05.

Zee Telefilms was up 3.11 per cent at Rs 129.40. Bajaj Auto was up 2.19 per cent to Rs 890.50, Hero Honda was up 1.87 per cent to Rs 478.75 and Tata Motors was up 1.44 per cent to Rs 473.05.

Ranbaxy Labs was up 1.92 per cent to Rs 921.25, Cipla was up 0.67 per cent to Rs 1,144.85 and Dr Reddy's Labs was up 0.32 per cent to Rs 978.45. ONGC was down 0.34 per cent to Rs 844.40.