The Hindu Business Line : Infosys, ICICI Bank lead recovery

ON Monday, the market recovered to the levels that prevailed in the early sessions of last week. With the passing of Easter Sunday, the bulls re-appeared from their hibernation to send the market on a roll. The resurrection comes after consecutive losses registered over the last five trading sessions. All round rally was present in the market, all major indices registered significant gains.

The undertone in the market was bullish; the advance declines ratio was more pronounced in the frontline and mid-cap stocks. The advances in the small cap stocks also outperformed the declines. Infosys, ICICI Bank, Reliance Industries led the upward rally in the bellwether indices, while Bharti Tele-Ventures and ITC pulled them down to lower levels.

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The BSE Sensex opened on a strong note; moving within a band of 84 points, it touched a high of 6555.1 points; it subsequently shed a part of the gains to close at 6510.74 to register a net gain of 67.87 points.

The S&P CNX Nifty opened flat, the index put on smart initial gains, and it went on to touch a high of 2046.85 points in the post lunch session, towards close slipped to a low of 2015.25, recovered to close at a net gain of 0.7 per cent. The CNX Mid Cap 200 outperformed the Nifty registering a gain of one per cent.

On the back of a strengthening dollar, which is expected to boost profits of IT companies, stocks of mid-cap software companies registered smart gains. Geometric Software Solutions, Sonata Software, Aztec Software, Datamatics Technologies and iGate Global Solutions gained more than four per cent. Satyam, Infosys, TCS and Hexaware also registered smart gains.

High volumes were clocked on the counter of steel stocks. Mid cap steel stocks — Mukand Steel, Uttam Galva, Jindal Stainless, Kalyani Steel and Maharashtra Seamless put on smart gains of more than two per cent. Steel majors SAIL and Tata Steel registered moderate gains. Non-ferrous stocks — Strelite, Hindustan Zinc, National Aluminium Company also put on moderate gains.

During the intra-day trade Nagarjuna Construction on strong buying support flared by Rs 100 to touch a new high of Rs 601.35, the stock on thin trade volumes lost Rs 30, closing at a net gain of Rs 70. On Thursday, the company had announced that it had bagged an order worth Rs 450 crore. Other construction stocks that registered gains were IVRCL Infrastructure and Hindustan Construction.

MTNL shed 3.61 per cent on information that BSNL had asked the former to remit Rs 184 crore towards connection charges.

Accompanied by strong buying support Deccan Chronicle Holdings shot up by nearly 10 per cent, the company announced the launch of its Chennai Edition of Deccan Chronicle.

Dr Reddy's leaped by Rs 21 on the back of information that ICICI Ventures was to provide the pharma major, funds of about $56 million, for developing drugs for sale in the US.

The stock of McDowell & Co after last week's upward rally slipped by close to five per cent. United Breweries Holdings also registered a decline of close to five per cent. The stock of Shaw Wallace & Co. gained Rs 5.7 to close at Rs 216.

Block deals took place in the stock of Jindal Vijayanagar Steel, the stock closed with a gain of about Rs 21.

Prominent gainers on the Nifty were Tata Power, L&T, ABB, Zee Telefilms, Shipping Corporation of India and HDFC Bank.

Significant losers among the Nifty constituents were Tata Chemicals, VSNL, Bharat Petroleum, Grasim, Mahindra & Mahindra and Colgate Palmolive.

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