The Hindu Business Line : Profit-booking checks Sensex progress

THE markets appeared to be on never-ending northward bound journey. The markets, of late, have been repeatedly breaking earlier records. Prompted by profit booking, volatility was witnessed in the early hours of trade. However, the markets recovered in the latter half of the day helped by consumer durables, oil & gas and PSU stocks closed higher. A lot of activity was seen in the banking sector.

The BSE Sensex crossed the 6900 mark, touching an intra-day high of 6902.49. The index closed at 6878.98, higher by 29.5 points from Friday's close.

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The S&P CNX Nifty opened at 2148.25; it went on to touch an intra-day high of 2166.85 before closing at 2160.1, a gain of 0.56 per cent. The CNX Nifty Junior outperformed the Nifty posting a gain of 1.51 per cent.

The banking sector was the darling of the market; the sectoral index on the BSE jumped by more than two per cent. Investors appear to have relentlessly bought shares of banking companies, reacting to the Finance Minister's statement of ensuring a more than seven per cent growth. Bank of India, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Punjab National Bank, Andhra Bank, Canara Bank and Bank of Baroda jumped by more than five per cent. Kotak Bank bucked the trend; it closed lower by nearly one per cent. PNB traded at a substantial premium of nearly Rs 110 as compared to the upper limit of the price band for its public issue.

Stocks of major refiners, Indian Oil Corporation, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation, and Bharat Petroleum were down marginally. Chennai Petroleum and Kochi Refineries bucked the trend. Mangalore Refineries and Petrochemicals shot up by nearly four per cent and ONGC by Rs 13.65. This comes on the back of the Petroleum Minister's statement that Petroleos de Venezuela SA may pick up a stake in the former and ONGC was likely to pick up a 49 per cent stake in Venezuela's San Cristobel oilfield.

Stocks of auto manufacturers such as TVS Motor, Tata Motors, Maruti Udyog, Hero Honda, and Ashok Leyland appeared to have tanked. Stocks of tyre manufacturers Ceat, Apollo Tyres, JK Industries and MRF continued their upward trend. Accompanied by a nearly two-fold jump in volume, Bharat Forge put on gains of Rs 65.3 to close at Rs 1525.9.

The FMCG oriented index on the BSE moved in the red for most of the day. Key FMCG stocks, Colgate Palmolive, Dabur India, ITC, Nirma, and Tata Tea were down. Hindustan Lever on concerns of lower revenue-growth was down by nearly three per cent.

Aided by rise in prices of aluminium, shares of Madras Aluminium, National Aluminium and Hindalco were up.

Hindustan Construction logged gains of nearly 7.9 per cent, closing at Rs 483.5. This has to be seen in the light of the company announcing a hike in FII limit to 49 per cent and a preferential allotment of 29 lakh shares to the Morgan Stanley group and Goldman Sachs at Rs 450 per share. Accompanied by nearly a 21-fold jump in volume, shot up by nearly 20 per cent hitting the circuit filter. Mahindra Gesco and IVRCL Infrastructure were also up.

Two block deals of Gujarat Alkalies aggregating close to 52 lakh shares of equity changed hands. The stock closed higher at Rs 137 posting a gain of nearly four per cent.

Prominent gainers on the Nifty were Shipping Corporation of India, Reliance Industries, HDFC Bank, HDFC, SBI and HCL Technologies.

Significant losers among the Nifty constituents were Bharti Televentures, Larsen & Toubro, Cipla and Bharat Heavy Electricals.

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