The Hindu Business Line : Dream run continues at the bourses

THE dream run for the stock markets continued, with both the Sensex and the Nifty touching lifetime highs during and at the end of the day's trading session.

The Sensex closed 149.23 points (or 1.59 per cent) higher at 9,539.37 points and the Nifty marched up by 47.4 points (or 1.67 per cent) to settle at 2,883.35.

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Except for a brief period at the start, the market sentiment remained positive right through the trading session.

The spectacular run-up is evident from the fact that only two stocks on the Sensex and five on the Nifty ended in the negative territory.

The market breadth was robust, with 2,115 out of 2,603 stocks appreciating in value. In effect, the advance to declines ratio was skewed in favour of the advances in the ratio of 4.7 to 1.

Among the BSE Sectoral Indices, the two sectors that outperformed the Sensex were healthcare and oil and gas.

The BSE Midcap and Small cap indices were also on fire, recording a gain of 1.74 per cent and 1.94 per cent respectively.

Like the S&P CNX Nifty, the Nifty Junior also ended in the positive territory, gaining 1.57 per cent during the day. Among the Nifty constituents, the significant losers were Jet Airways, Cipla, Tata Chemicals, HDFC Bank and Sun Pharma. In the Nifty Junior, the key gainers were Pfizer, Aventis Pharma, Kotak Mahindra Bank, TVS Motors and Vijaya Bank. The losers were Bharat Forge, MphasiS BFL, Raymond and Nirma.

The other significant gainers during the day included Timex Watches, Punjab Alkalies, Chowgule Steamships, Hi-Tech Gears, Bank of Rajasthan, Unitech, Chemfab Alkalies, Deepak Fertilisers, Timken and Dhampur Sugars.

The Timex Watches stock appreciated Rs 4.6 (or 20 per cent) to settle for the day at Rs 27.60. The trading volumes in the stock soared from 1.5 lakh shares on Monday's trading to 19.26 lakh shares during the day.

Riding on the back of strong trading volumes, the Punjab Alkalies stock also marched up by Rs 10 and hit the upper end of the circuit to close at Rs 60.15. Compared to 41,543 shares traded on Monday, the trading volumes jumped to 3.12 lakh shares during the day.

The Hi-Tech Gears stock rallied by Rs 38.35 to close at Rs 231.35. The trading volumes have surged nearly ten-fold to 3.21 lakh shares, despite the company denying that it has bagged a $400-million outsourcing order from a large US manufacturing company.

The Unitech stock continued its upward march, with the stock jumping by Rs 108.95 to close at Rs 1,198.75. The uptrend has to be seen in the backdrop of the recent decision to come out with an open offer to consolidate holdings at a price of Rs 895 per share. The trading volumes, however, continued to be fairly thin.

Among the sugar stocks, one of the fancied sectors in this bull-run, Dhampur Sugars gained Rs 16.65 (or 8.4 per cent) to close at Rs 213.80. The uptrend was marked with heightened trading activity, with the trading volumes going up from 5.24 lakh shares to 18.3 lakh shares during the day.

The key losers included Pritish Nandy Communications, Selan Exploration and a flurry of IT stocks such as IOL Broadband, California Software, Saksoft, RS Software and KPIT Cummins.