Market up on short covering

STOCK REPORT

After swinging between positive and negative territory, key share indices managed to end up on the back of short covering ahead of expiry of June derivatives futures contract Thursday, dealers said.

"Nifty was able to gain 0.6 per cent compared with 0.1 per cent rise in the Sensex on the back of gains in index heavyweight ONGC, which has more weightage on Nifty," Priyadarshi Srivastava, head, institutional sales, Niche Brokerage, said.

Oil and Natural Gas Corp ended up 3 per cent at Rs 943 as investors took comfort from the rupee weakening against the dollar.

For every Re 1 rise against the dollar, ONGC bears revenue loss of Rs 950 crore on an annualised basis, Chairman and Managing Director R S Sharma said.

The Bombay Stock Exchange's 30-share Sensex ended at 14501.08, up 13.36 points or 0.1 per cent from Monday. Intraday, it moved between 14478.75 and 14560.48.

The National Stock Exchange's 50-share Nifty ended at 4285.70, up 26.30 points or 0.6 per cent. Intraday, it moved between 4250.10 and 4296.15.

Turnover on both the exchanges was roughly Rs 13,780 crore compared with Rs 12,600 crore on Monday.

The CNX Midcap Index and S&P CNX 500 Index ended up 1 per cent each.

Reliance Petroleum, up 6 per cent at Rs 107, extended gains from the previous session after HSBC upgraded the stock to "outperform" from "underperform".

The stock, which has gained 11 per cent in the last two sessions, was the top Nifty gainer for the second straight session.

Suzlon Energy was up 5 per cent at Rs 1,436 after the company on Tuesday got technical clearance in Kerala to set up a wind power project.

However, analysts said this clearance was in pipeline and unlikely to have a significant impact on company's revenue immediately, given that it is executing orders worth more than Rs 13,300 crore.

Oriental Bank of Commerce was up 2 per cent at Rs 221 on reports the bank has been short-listed by Canara Bank as a possible acquisition target.

The BSE Consumer Goods Index, up 3 per cent, was the top gainer among BSE sectoral indices on the back of 8 per cent gains in Titan Industries.