The Hindu Business Line : Bellwether fails to sustain recovery

THE volatility continued at the bourses, with the BSE Sensex declining by 117.01 points (or 1.95 per cent) to close at 5876.05 points on Wednesday. This partly reverses the 400-point rise in the Sensex over the past two trading days.

There was an intra-day swing in the Sensex of 215.35 points. It opened on a weak note at 5980.88, staged a recovery in the forenoon session, touching a high of 6030.55 points. But in the afternoon session, the bellwether failed to sustain the recovery, losing value steadily to touch a low of 5815.20 points.

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In the last half-an-hour of trade, however, the Sensex staged a modest recovery to close at 5876.05, aided to some extent by the mini-Exim policy unveiled by the Commerce Minister, Mr Arun Jaitley.

The S&P CNX Nifty declined by 41.6 points (or 2.18 per cent) to close at 1863.10 points.

In the 30-share Sensitive Index, only seven stocks appreciated, while 23 shed value. The top six index heavyweights — Reliance, Infosys Technologies, Hindustan Lever, ICICI Bank, ITC, State Bank of India and Ranbaxy Labs declined in value during the day's trading.

The HDFC stock was among the prominent gainers, with the stock appreciating by 5.5 per cent to close at Rs 654.65. The bearish sentiment was also evident from the advances to declines ratio, which stood at 0.48 with 661 stocks gaining in value while 1,358 stocks logged declines. Among the significant gainers were Sakthi Sugars, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Amtek Auto, HDFC, Rashtriya Chemicals, Hughes Software, Punjab National Bank and Zensar Technologies.

The Sakthi Sugars stock appreciated by Rs 3.40 (or 9.78 per cent) to close at Rs 38.15. There was a near ten-fold rise in trading volumes with the number of shares rising from 35,518 on Tuesday to 3.22 lakh during the day.

Riding on robust trading volumes, the Kotak Mahindra Bank stock rose by Rs 35.20 (or 9.4 per cent) to close at 408.35. Compared to 16,710 shares traded on Tuesday, the trading volumes in the stock surged to 1.69 lakh on Wednesday.

Aided by heightened trading interest, the auto ancillary stock, Amtek Auto jumped by Rs 26 (or 6.35 per cent) to settle at Rs 435.05. The trading volumes in the stock soared to 2.56 lakh from 22,760 on Tuesday.

The Hughes Software stock which has been fairly volatile, gained Rs 26.85 (or 4.95 per cent) to rest at Rs 568.80. The trading volumes in the stock, however, dipped marginally from 61,342 to 49,292.

Bolstered by a good performance, the Zensar Technologies stock appreciated by Rs 4.45 (or 3.86 per cent) to close at Rs 119.55. The trading volumes rose from 84,145 to 1.12 lakh. This uptrend has to be seen in the light of a 75 per cent rise in post tax earnings of Rs 8.12 crore for the nine-month ended December 31, 2003.

The banking stocks had a mixed run during the day. Stocks such as Punjab National Bank and UTI Bank have appreciated while Canara Bank and Andhra Bank shed value. Among the other losers were Moschip Semiconductor, Oil Country Tubular, Sri Adhikari Brothers, Rain Calcining and Bharat Earth Movers.

The Andhra Bank stock declined by Rs 4.55 (or 8.16 per cent) to close at Rs 51.15. The trading volumes soared from 3.07 lakh on Tuesday to 11.89 lakh during the day.

The Hexaware Technologies stock declined by Rs 29.20 (or 7.54 per cent) to settle at Rs 357.70. There appears to have been some profit booking after the good earnings performance for the year ended December 2003. The trading volumes dipped marginally from 1.7 lakh to 1.09 lakh.