The Hindu Business Line : Pivotals lose buying momentum

The bellwether indices snapped their gaining streak, as buying interest appeared to have waned in frontline stocks. The Sensex and the Nifty registered declines of 0.2 and 0.5 per cent, respectively.

Market participants turned their attention to small cap stocks with many stocks touching the upper circuit filter. Market breadth was positive lower down the ladder with the advances-declines ratio on the BSE 500 index at 7:3 in favour of the gainers.

Buzzing sectors

Steel stocks attracted buying activity, however, gains were moderate. Buying interest appears to have set in on the back of announcements that Tata Steel plans to raise the prices of hot-rolled steel by about Rs 2,000 to Rs 24,000. The announcement follows price hikes by global majors. Mukand, Southern Iron & Steel, Maharashtra Seamless, Llyod Steel and Ferro Alloy Corporation gained more than 5 per cent. However, gains were moderate in frontline stocks such as Essar Steel, Ispat Industries, Jindal Steel, SAIL and Sesa Goa. Tata Steel also registered moderate gains of about 3 per cent.

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The automobile sector also attracted significant interest, this included tyres and automobile components. Eicher Motors was among the top gainers in this sector. The stock gained 15 per cent on the back of a four-fold rise in volumes. Bharat Forge, Mico, Munjal Showa and SKF India were among the prominent gainers in the auto-ancillaries segment.

Goodyear India and Ceat gained 7 and 5 per cent, respectively, other prominent gainers in the tyre industry included Apollo Tyres and MRF. Commercial vehicle majors — Tata Motors and Ashok Leyland also recoded gains. Hero Honda was the only prominent loser in the two-wheeler space.

The healthcare sector was in the limelight. Second rung stocks such as Pfizer, Novartis, Shasun Chemicals, Ajanta Pharma, Aventis Pharma and Divi's Laboratories recorded sharp gains of more than 5 per cent. Other gainers included Morepen Laboratories, Dabur Pharma and Solvay Pharma. However, quite a few frontline stocks bucked the trend. Ranbaxy Laboratories, Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, RPG Life Sciences, Sun Pharmaceuticals and GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals featured in the losers list.

Stock-specific action

Market participants appeared to be unenthused by Ansal Properties plans of a stock-split. The stock continued its losing streak by losing about 5 per cent.

Torrent Pharmaceuticals failed to make any significant movement on announcements that the company has filed applications with the USFDA for the sale of four drugs and three drug ingredients. The stock gained about 1 per cent on flat volumes.

Buying activity was recorded on the Jet Airways' counter amid reports that the company bagged the Government's approval for transfer of Sahara assets. It surged past the Rs 1,000-mark in intra-day trading; however, sentiment appeared to have dampened towards close as the stock ended at Rs 995.5. It closed with a gain of about 7 per cent on the back of a more than two-fold rise in volumes.

Gainers and losers

Ramco Systems, IFCI, DCW, Century Extrusions, NIIT Technologies, Vikash Metal & Power, Nahar Exports and McDowell & Co were among those that featured in gainers list. Bharat Gears, Bharat Earth Movers, Orient Press, Quintegra Solutions, Steel Tubes, Nagarjuna Construction and Kalpataru Power Transmission were among the prominent losers.