Sensex drops 27pts; BHEL zooms 5%

The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 19 points at 11,326. After adding some more gains, the index tumbled into negative zone to a low of 11,231.

Renewed buying in select stocks, especially BHEL, Cipla and Tata Steel, saw the index move back into positive zone and rally to a new all-time intra-day high of 11,357 - up 126 points from the day's low.

Profit-taking towards the end saw the index slip back into the red, and finish with a marginal loss of 27 points at 11,280.

While the BSE Midcap Index rallied nearly 2% to 5349, the Smallcap Index gained 1.2% at 6592.

The market breadth was fairly positive. Out of 2,535 stocks traded, 1,741 advanced, 738 declined and 56 were unchanged today.

INDEX MOVERS & SHAKERS

BHEL surged over 5% to Rs 2,247. Cipla rallied 4% to Rs 662. Tata Steel and Tata Motors were up 2.7% each at Rs 537 and Rs 933, respectively.

Maruti advanced 2.2% to Rs 874. Bajaj Auto and Grasim were up nearly 2% each at Rs 2,747 and Rs 2,077, respectively.

Ranbaxy plunged 4.5% to Rs 432. TCS dropped 2.7% to 1,914. ONGC and ITC shed 2% each to Rs 1,310 and Rs 195, respectively.

While Infosys declined 1.8% to Rs 2,981, Wipro slipped 1% to Rs 559. HDFC dropped 1.6% to Rs 1,336, and Larsen & Toubro was down 1% at Rs 2,433.

OTHER GAINERS & LOSERS

Ramco System and Ambica Agarbati zoomed 20% each to Rs 236 and Rs 14.61, respectively. Agro Tech Food, IFCI, Eicher Motors, GMDC, Advik Labs, DCW, NIIT Technologies, McDowell, Proctor & Gamble, Alfa Laval, Castrol India, Pfizer, FACT, Novartis, Century Textiles and Godrej Consumer gained 7-18% each.

BEML slumped 9.4% to Rs 1,480. Nagarjuna Construction, Ansal Infrastructure, State Bank of Mysore, Kalpatru Power, UTV Software, Pratibha, MacMillan India, Mysore Cement, Nestle, Sun Pharma, MTNL, GSK Pharma, JSW Steel and Asian Paints were the other prominent losers.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

VSNL topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 172.85 crore followed by Reliance Communication Ventures (Rs 128.50 crore), McDowell (Rs 119.52 crore), Ranbaxy (Rs 109.56 crore) and Tata Steel (Rs 107.19 crore).

IFCI led the volume chart with trades of around 89.50 lakh shares followed by Reliance Natural Resources (68.32 lakh), SAIL (58.83 lakh), Himachal Futuristic (41.93 lakh) and Reliance Communication Ventures (41.66 lakh).