Sensex slips 42pts; Sobha zooms 51%

The bulls and bears fought a hard battle, and the Sensex witnessed a swing of 335 points today.

The Sensex, which opened with a positive gap of 70 points at 13,453, scaled a high of 13,568 in morning deals only to tumble to a low of 13,233 - down 335 points from the day's high.

The afternoon session saw the market recover, and the index gained  over 100 points led by buying in Infosys, Bharti Airtel, Tata Steel and ONGC.

The bears, however, had the last laugh as a fresh bout of selling towards the close, especially in HLL, Tata Motors and Hero Honda, saw the index tumble into negative zone. The Sensex finally settled with a loss of 42 points at 13,340.

The market breadth was negative - out of 2,610 stocks traded, 1,423 declined, 1,102 advanced and the rest were unchanged.

INDEX MOVERS & SHAKERS

Tata Steel surged over 2% to Rs 465. Maruti and ONGC gained around 1.5% each to Rs 923 and Rs 859, respectively.

HDFC, ITC and Cipla were up over 1% each at Rs 1,571, Rs 171 and Rs 244, respectively.

Tata Motors and Hero Honda slipped 3% each to Rs 836 and Rs 731, respectively. HLL dropped nearly 3% to Rs 218.

Wipro, HDFC Bank and Grasim declined around 2% each to Rs 555, Rs 1,018 and Rs 2,665, respectively.

Reliance Energy and Bajaj Auto slipped around 1.5% each to Rs 514 and Rs 2,509, respectively.

SOBHA SHINES ON DEBUT, RUCHIRA WHINES

Sobha Developers listed at Rs 1,111, a 74% premium to its issue price of Rs 640. The stock flared to a high of Rs 1,179, and then slipped to a low of Rs 918. The stock finally closed with a gain of 51% (Rs 329) at Rs 969.

Ruchira Papers made a subded debut. The stock listed at Rs 24.35, a marginal premium of 6% to its issue price of Rs 23. It tumbled to a low of Rs 20.70, and ended at Rs 21, a 9% discount to its issue price.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

Debutant Sobha Developers topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 710.90 crore followed by Tech Mahindra (Rs 238.85 crore), Reliance (Rs 166.70 crore), Reliance Communications (Rs 120 crore) and Century Textiles (Rs 82.60 crore).

Teledata led the volume chart with trades of around 90 lakh shares followed by Sobha Developers (73.40 lakh), Ruchira Papers (41.20 lakh), Silverline (32.10 lakh) and Mascon Global (32 lakh).