Sensex swings 576pts, cement scrips soar

The market witnessed high volatility today. Just when everybody expected a repeat of yesterday's one-way decline, the market surprised everybody with a strong comeback. The triggers - firm prices on LME and solid buying at lower levels. The Sensex swung over 500 points in intra-day deals today before finishing with a gain of 52 points.

The index opened with a positive gap of 39 points at 11,861, but soon slipped into negative zone. Selling gained momentum in the late morning deals, which saw the index tumble all the way to a low of 11,379 - down 482 points from the open.

However, renewed buying at lower levels saw the index recoup losses in the noon deals. A fresh round of heavy buying towards the closing bell saw the index erase all the losses and rebound into the positive zone to touch a high of 11,955 - up 576 points from the day's low.

At close, the Sensex broke its three-day losing streak by finishing with a gain of 52 points at 11,874.

The Bankex and Capital Goods index declined over 1% each to 5,416 and 8,516, respectively. The FMCG index, however, gained 1% at 2,197.

While the BSE Mid-cap index slipped 1.3% to 5,700, the Small-cap index shed 1.8% to 7,336.

The market breadth was extremely negative - out of 2,538 stocks traded, 1,832 declined, 670 advanced and 36 were unchanged today.

INDEX GAINERS & LOSERS

Cement stocks witnessed heavy buying today. Gujarat Ambuja soared nearly 8% to Rs 109. ACC surged 5% to Rs 904, and Grasim gained 2.7% at Rs 2,182.

BHEL rallied 3.3% to Rs 2,330. Bajaj Auto zoomed 2.7% to Rs 3,123. Tata Motors spurted over 1% to Rs 930.

Reliance surged over 2% to Rs 1,043. Dr.Reddy's added 1.6% to Rs 1,620.

While HLL advanced 2.2% to Rs 270, ITC moved up 1.6% to Rs 194.

Hindalco was up 2.2% at Rs 215. NTPC gained 1.5% at Rs 131.

Larsen & Toubro dropped 3% to Rs 2,627. Tata Steel shed over 2% to Rs 573.

Tata Power declined over 2% to Rs 573, and Reliance Energy slipped 1% to Rs 581.

Hero Honda was down 1.5% at Rs 849. ICICI Bank declined 1.4% to Rs 614. Cipla shed 1% at Rs 263.

OTHER GAINERS & LOSERS

Bombay Rayon zoomed over 15% to Rs 241. Goetze, Everest Kanto, India Hume, UltraTech, Shyam Telecom, J K Lakshmi, Dalmia Cement, Patni Computers, Dabur, Raymond, India Cement, IPCL, Titan, Adani Exports, SAIL And MICO were the other major gainers today.

Sadbhav Engineering plunged 8% to Rs 457. Jayant Agro, Swaraj Mazda, Hindustan Zinc, Syndicate Bank, Britannia, Jindal Stainless, Reliance Petro, Jindal Saw Pipes and HMT were the other major losers today.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

Reliance topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 468.69 crore followed by Tata Steel (Rs 222.58 crore), Hindalco (Rs 191.57 crore), Reliance Petro (Rs 146.75 crore) and ACC (Rs 110.72 crore).

G V Films led the volume chart with trades of around 1.97 crore shares followed by Reliance Petro (1.96 crore), Hindalco (92.52 lakh), IFCI (88.08 lakh) and Reliance Energy Ventures (67.08 lakh).