The Hindu Business Line : Heightened activity in pivotals pushes up Sensex

Trading Highlights *Volatile trading session. *Benchmark indices touch all-time high *Commodity stocks in limelight *IT stocks amongst big losers

The markets had one more cracker of an opening hour on Wednesday too. The markets had acquired the image of an unstoppable juggernaut with massive leaps in the indices during the past two sessions of this week.

General Market Trend

The first few hours of Wednesday's session had all the indications of another such bulldozing bull run. With a gain of nearly 165 points on the board by mid-session, the Bombay Stock Exchange Sensitive Index (Sensex) seemed all set to cross the next psychological barrier - the 12,000 points level.

But, Wednesday's roaring bull run of the first few hours turned out to be a whimper towards the end of the session due largely to profit booking setting in at higher levels. At the height of the selling spree setting in during mid-session, the gains in the indices had all been wiped out. The benchmark indices then actually dipped into negative territory, before buying support finally reemerged towards the end of the trading session.

At the close of Wednesday's session, the BSE Sensex was up 74 points at 11,896 points and the NSE Nifty index was up 17 points at 3,536 points. Both the benchmark indices had touched a new all-time high level on Wednesday. There were a total of 17 gainers from out of the Sensex 30.

Sector Focus

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The broad market trend was reflected in all the general indices including the mid-cap, small-cap, public sector undertaking and even in a few sectoral indices such as the index of banking stocks. But the other sectoral indices were a mixed bag with the losers at the BSE being the BSE Auto, BSE Teck, BSE IT and the BSE FMCG indices. The gainers were BSE Oil and Gas, BSE Bankex, BSE Healthcare, BSE Metal and BSE Capital Goods. Sugar sector was also in the limelight.

Information technology or software stocks were in the limelight on Wednesday, with many of them being the losers at the end of the day's session. However, stocks such as Wipro, Infosys Technologies, Satyam Computers and HCL Technologies were the star performers during the first few hours of trade on Wednesday. Buoyed by investor interest due to the pending announcement of Wipro's annual results, stocks from the IT sector were all in demand in the first half of the session.

Other sector stocks that witnessed heightened activity were from the auto, oil and gas, banking and metals sectors. Stocks from the pharmaceutical, cement, telecom and shipping sectors had a mixed day.

Buzzing Stocks

Amongst the biggest gainers from amongst the frontline stocks were Reliance Industries, Tata Steel, National Aluminium, Sun Pharmaceuticals, ACC, Grasim Industries, BHEL, Indian Overseas Bank, Chennai Petroleum Corporation, Bongaigaon Refinery and Petrochemicals and GE Shipping.