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C. Raja Rajeshwari

BOUNCING back twice from the negative territory, the benchmark indices closed with gains for sixth straight day. Both the BSE and NSE opened weak, but bounced back in morning trades only to skid into the day's low. However, buying interest at the end of the day provided the much-needed impetus to sail into the positive territory.

The Sensex opened weak at 5,374.15 points, sliding further to an intra-day low of 5,351.21 points and later rising to close at 5,437.05 points with a gain of 46.17 points. The Sensex has gained 5.95 per cent in the past six days. The Nifty gained 12.30 points and closed at 1,736.25. The Nifty has closed in the positive territory in the past seven days, gaining 5.49 per cent.

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The FMCG stocks were in the fore of Tuesday's trading followed by select pharma and power stocks. Among the Sensex constituents, gains of Reliance, Infosys, HLL and ITC held the index firm.

HLL, which has a 7.53 per cent weightage in the Sensex gained 3.37 per cent to close at Rs 199.60. ITC, which has a 6.13 per cent weightage, gained 3.76 per cent to Rs 1,032.

However, most of the tech, auto, steel and shipping stocks were out of favour.

Notable losers in the Sensex were Ranbaxy, SBI, HDFC, Tata Steel, L&T, Satyam Computers, Tata Motors, Grasim, HPCL and ONGC.

PSU stocks lost steam; the BSEPSU index sliding into the negative territory to close at 3346.44 points, down by 1.16 per cent. The overall market sentiment was bearish; with 1,223 stock declining as compared to 895 stocks gaining. Most of the decline was in the `B1' groups of stocks with 67.76 per cent of the 673 stocks turning weak.

Notable gainers on Tuesday's trading were MIRC Electronics, iGate Global Solutions, Bharat Earth Movers, UTI Bank, TNPL, J&K Bank and Eveready Industries. Notable losers were Saw Pipes, Thomas Cook India, LIC House Finance, ETC Networks and Color Chips.

ICICI Bank gained 2.34 per cent to Rs 282. About 2.95 lakh shares were traded in the BSE. This is viewed in light of recent developments such as the S&P revising its outlook on ICICI Bank, Bank of Baroda and IDBI; in addition to a similar revision for the country; the stocks fired up.

There was hectic activity in the entertainment stocks. In the vanguard were Tips Industries and Adlabs Films. The former gained 18 per cent to Rs 8.35 whereas the latter gained 14.68 per cent to Rs 115.20. Other gainers included Saregama India, Cinevistaas, Sri Adhikari Brothers, Creative Eye, Mukta Arts and Zee Telefilms.

Gestetner India was up 20 per cent to Rs 33.60; following an open offer for 24 per cent of equity stake by Ricoh, Japan.

George Williamson gained over 9 per cent to Rs 108.95, backed by news that an MNC has shown interest in buying out the promoters' stake.

Phillips Carbon Black gained 2.07 per cent to Rs 103.75 backed by the company's announcement that to meet the growing demand for carbon black, the company has embarked on a major expansion of its Baroda plant to enhance capacity by 70,000 MTPA.

iGate Global Solutions rose by 10.38 per cent to Rs 350.80. About 3.5 lakh shares were traded in the BSE and 10.39 lakh shares in the NSE. This could be viewed in light of the company's announcement that the company would share a significant development on Wednesday in which the CEO of the company and senior official from ING Vysya Bank would participate.

Stocks that touched new 52-week highs were Kirloskar Oil Engines, Gammon India, Cranes Software, Alfa Laval, Shah Alloys, Sundaram Fasteners, Vimta Labs, Greaves Morgenite, IPCA Labs and Matrix Labs.

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