The Hindu Business Line : Bourses trip over correction, rising crude prices

Markets opened on a firm note with the Sensex and Nifty trading on positive grounds. Trading later became volatile with the Sensex recording an intra day low of 6774.1 and closing at 6781.9, down 0.7 per cent or 50.5 points, against Thursday's close of 6832.53.

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The Nifty closed at 2090.6, down 0.6 per cent or 12.6 points.

Bank, auto, capital goods, FMCG were among the major losers.

The BSE Bankex suffered heavily and declined by 1.3 per cent.

Spurt in crude oil prices made negative impact on the market sentiment. The advance/decline ratio of 0.61:1 reflected the strong selling pressure that prevailed for the day.

The major gainers in the basket of the BSE-30 (Sensex) were Reliance, Dr Reddy's and HDFC.

Reliance surged 1.4 per cent after Standard & Poor's announced that it would not change the rating on the refinery even if the feud in the group caused a split.

Other gainers include Satyam Computer and Gujarat Ambuja Cement.

In the BSE Mid-cap Indiabulls, Gillette and Moser Baer made handsome gains.

Consumable durables sector saw respectable buying activity with Titan Industries closing at Rs 347.1, up 4.6 per cent after good results announced earlier this week.

Samtel Color, BPL and Whirlpool were other notable gainers while Videocon and Blue Star ended in the red.

Pharma and chemicals put up a lacklustre performance with second rung stocks such as Aarti Drugs, Cadila, Nicholas Piramal and Shasun Chemicals all ending in the red. Lupin, Biocon and Merck made respectable gains.

The auto stocks of Phoenix Lamps and Omax Auto made gains of around 5 per cent, while the frontline stocks of Tata Motors, Punjab Tractors, Ashok Leyland and Bajaj Auto witnessed strong selling pressure.

Banking stocks were worst hit with IOB, Bank of India, Allahabad Bank, Andhra Bank and ICICI Bank sending the bank index downwards. Vijaya Bank and State Bank of Travancore, however, weathered the bear's challenge.

Consumer goods sector witnessed mixed sentiments. While Gillette, Eveready and Tata Coffee stayed positive, Henkel Spic, Nirma, Nestle, Shaw Wallace and Nestle fell.

Among the and technology stocks VSNL ended in style closing at Rs 228.5, up 3.7 per cent, after its impressive quarterly results ending March 2005. The company has also announced its plan to start services in South Africa.

The stock of NIIT, however, declined although its quarter ended in March profits increased four fold.

Among the metal stocks, Gujarat NRE Coke surged 3 per cent after the company announced that it has become the first Indian company to export coke to Europe. Jindal Stainless Steel, Bhushan Steel and Sterlite also witnessed clocked gains while Kalyan Steel, Uttam Galva and Lloyd Steel closed in negative turf.

Corporate action: The stock of Cyber Media surged on its debut in the market and closed at Rs 105.45, up by Rs 45.5 over its offer price.

Tata Tea announced a 38.4 per cent increase in profits for quarter ended March 2005 over corresponding quarter of March 04 and recommended 100 per cent dividends. The stock, however, failed to impress and ended with a decline of 1.3 per cent.

Era Construction initially surged by 1.9 per cent after the board approved plans to raise Rs 49.2 crore through new issue of shares but ended the day on a weak note.

The stocks that spoke top volumes were Bharti Tele Services, Tata Steel , Reliance, HLL, SBI, NTPC and Satyam Computer Services.

Notable gainers in the Nifty constituents were Tata Chemicals, Sun Pharma, IFCI and Polaris while those on the losers list included Pearl Global and RPG Telecom.

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