The Hindu Business Line : Steel scrips forge ahead in volatile trade

WITH no clear indicators to cling on to and the uncertainty of the forthcoming polls looming, the stock markets continued to remain volatile on Tuesday. Though the major indices closed in positive territory at the end of the second session of the week, it was not before they went through a series of up and downs.

Click here for table

The markets remained range-bound in the first half of Tuesday's session. Most market players seemed to tread cautiously and waited on the sidelines, refusing to make large purchases. While buying support picked up steam midway through the session, bear hammering again led to a fall in the indices, though the major indices did not slip back into negative territory in the second half of the session. Subsequently, a wave of buying support in key index stocks again pulled up the indices towards the close of the session.

Though the full effect of the renewed institutional support could not be sustained till the end of the session, the indices still managed to stay in the black on the back of the gains posted by some of the key index heavyweights.

The Bombay Stock Exchange Sensitive Index (Sensex) opened Tuesday's session with an increase of six points and gradually picked up pace to close the day at 6,035.8 points, a gain of 23.45 points or 0.39 per cent over the previous close. At one point during the session, the Sensex dipped to below the 6,000-point level. The index also touched an intraday high of 6,059 points. There were a total of 18 index stocks that posted gains on Tuesday; the remaining 12 closed the day in the red. Traded value of index stocks stood at Rs 1,436 crore.

The story was not much different at the National Stock Exchange (NSE). The 50-stock Nifty index also closed 0.35 per cent higher at 1,920 points, up seven points from the previous close of 1,913.6 points. Selective buying support in information technology, pharmaceuticals, steel and banking stocks helped keep the indices in the black on Tuesday.

The major gainers from amongst the Sensex 30 were Reliance Industries and Infosys Technologies, both up nearly 1 per cent at Rs 597.8 and Rs 5,401, respectively; ICICI Bank and Tata Steel, up over 2.2 per cent at Rs 316 and Rs 453.6, respectively; Grasim Industries, which closed higher by 4.6 per cent at Rs 1,188; and Larsen & Toubro and BHEL, both of which gained about 1.5 per cent.

The other gainers from the Sensex were ITC, State Bank of India, Ranbaxy Laboratories, Hindalco, HDFC, Satyam Computer, Bharti TeleVentures, HDFC Bank, Tata Power, ACC and Gujarat Ambuja Cements.

There were also a few big losers amongst index stocks that included the FMCG major Hindustan Lever. Investors did not seem enthused by HLL's quarterly earnings numbers that the company announced on Tuesday. Year-on-year, the company earnings growth was nearly flat during the third quarter ended December 2003.

HLL was down 3.3 per cent at Rs 192.8 on Tuesday. The other Sensex losers were HPCL, Wipro, Bajaj Auto, ONGC, Hero Honda, BSES, Cipla, MTNL and Zee Telefilms.

The other major gainers from the Nifty stocks were Sun Pharmaceuticals, Orient Bank, BPCL, HCL Technologies and National Aluminium. Amongst the other losers from the Nifty 50 were IPCL, Shipping Corporation, Gas Authority of India, VSNL, Colgate and Indian Hotels.

Steel sector stocks were in the limelight on Tuesday after news trickled in that global steel companies were contemplating another round of price hikes for their hot rolled steel products. On the other hand, many public sector undertakings closed in the red. The BSEPSU index was down at the end of session on Tuesday. The other major losers from the BSEPSU index were Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilisers, Vijaya Bank, Kochi Refineries, Engineers India, National Fertilizers, Bongaigaon Refineries, IBP Ltd and Dredging Corporation.