The Hindu Business Line : Sensex continues its north-bound journey

THE good times continued to roll at the markets, with the benchmark BSE Sensex posting a gain in excess of 100 points for the second day on the trot. The Sensex finished at 8744.04 points, a gain of 105.70 points over Wednesday's close; the Nifty ended at 2635 points, up by 26.4. Outside of the strong showing of the stocks in the index, strength was also seen in most banking and select FMCG stocks.

Mirroring the strength in the broad market, advancing stocks outpaced declining ones by a factor of two. Interestingly, gains in the mid-cap category trailed those in large- and small-cap domains by a sizeable margin. But this did not deter the CNX 500 from posting a gain of a per cent, which was in line with the upward trend in the Nifty and Junior Nifty. In company specific action:

Tata Chemicals was marked up by about 6 per cent on the back of news flow on acquisition. The company has acquired a majority stake in an UK-based company. It ended the day as one of top gainers in the broad market.

PBA Infrastructure was a new listing that bucked the trend over the past month of IPOs listing or settling below the offer price. PBA Infrastructure opened at what turned out to be the day's high of Rs 105 and ended the day at Rs 68.45, a gain of about 15 per cent on the offer price of Rs 60.

Nicholas Piramal was a notable gainer aided by news flow of a 10-year arrangement with a global hospital group for supply of medicines.

Having notched up rich gains in the homestretch to its earning announcement, the Siemens stock closed with a modest decline even as the company unveiled an impressive earnings card, and, also announced a 100-per cent dividend, which included a one-time payout of 45 per cent.

Madhucon Projects, boosted by news of order-flow, bucked the lacklustre trend in construction-sector stocks; accretion to order book was also a factor in the upward trend in the BEML (Bharat Earth Movers) stock.

Opto Circuits' plan to mobilise Rs 100 crore through offer of equity shares received a lukewarm response.

ICICI Bank closed on a firm note, as the dates for its massive fund mobilisation exercise were fixed; the mega offer of equity is to open on December 1.

Banking-sector stocks had a fine outing led by frontline plays such as State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank and ICICI Bank; stocks of several other PSU banks such as Andhra Bank and Canara Bank, to name a couple also ended in positive territory. Stocks of private sector banks such as UTI Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank bucked the trend and ended the day in the red. CRISIL - the dominant player in financial services - continued to attract investor fancy and moved past the Rs 1,500-mark.

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Stocks of consumer bigwigs were at the forefront of gainers in the large-cap space. ITC, which led the upward trend in early trading, and Hindustan Lever notched smart gains. The latter has consolidated on the steady uptrend in recent weeks. Britannia Industries did, however, shed about 2 per cent on a day when investors appeared favourably inclined towards stocks in this space.

Stocks from the hospitality space found favour with investors with Indian Hotels stealing the show and building on its gains over the past week; stocks of other prominent players such as EIH and TajGVK Hotels also stayed in positive territory. Kamat Hotels was the exception.

The trend in the engineering sector was mixed. ABB and Siemens lost, while BHEL rose. This trend was evident in the mid-cap space, too. Esab India and Ador Welding were the notable gainers.

Low-priced stocks such as IFCI, Ispat Industries and Nagarjuna Fertilisers, which have been on a steady decline, continued to shed value on brisk volumes.

Other prominent gainers included Sterlite Optical, Birla Ericsson, Maharashtra Seamless, MphasiS BFL, Sandesh, Shiv-Vani Oil, FAG Bearings, Tata Tea, SAE India and Provogue. Notable in the losers list were the likes of Eimco Elecon, Ind Swift, Shree Renuka Sugars, Bombay Dyeing, CESC, TV Today Network, Keynote Corporate Services, Zee Telefilms, Apollo Tyres and MICO.

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