The Hindu Business Line : Markets momentum continue with sharp gains

Trading Highlights
Less volatile trading session
Sensex crosses 11,500 points intraday
Global cues lead to positive sentiment
Banking, engineering and oil stocks up
Sugar and select IT stocks down

The stock market seems to be on a roll, again. After a couple months of alternately going up and down, the performance of the market in the last few weeks has probably sent the strongest signal that a consistent upward move is sustainable.

General Market Trend

Opening, after a break for Independence Day on Tuesday, the markets literally broke free within minutes of the commencement of trading during the mid-week session.

Wednesday's session also did not witness the usual level of volatility that has been endemic to the market during the last couple of months and have led the benchmark indices on a roller coaster ride.

For both the NSE Nifty Index and the BSE Sensex, the opening level was the lowest point during the day and the indices shot up immediately thereafter. The BSE Sensex climbed up rapidly from the opening level of 11,384 points to touch an intraday high of 11,508 points.

But a bout of profit booking that set in during the last few minutes of the trading session lead to the indices dipping to lower levels.

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The BSE Sensex closed Wednesday at 11,448 points and the NSE Nifty closed at 3,356 points, off its intraday high of 3,377 points.

Both the indices were up about 1.2 per cent over their previous close levels recorded on Monday and both were up about 7 per cent over their month ago closing.

Stocks from most sectors were seen higher on Wednesday. There were 24 stocks that posted gains compared to six that were in the red from the Sensex thirty.

The stock market here seemed to have taken note of a few positive global cues that may have been the reasons behind the strong showing on Wednesday.

This could have included the fall in oil prices, the UN brokered peace deal that brought an end to the fighting between Israeli and Hezbollah forces and the positive vibes from the performance of markets in Asia on Wednesday.

Sectors in Focus

The general upbeat sentiment prevailed over most sector stocks on Wednesday and gains were seen across the board. But, some of the sectors that witnessed maximumaction included the banking, engineering and capital goods, oil and gas, public sector undertakings, metals and auto.

The BSE mid-cap and small cap indices also continued to outperform the broader indices.

However, sugar stocks, which have had a big run up during the last few trading sessions, were seen sliding into the red on Wednesday, with some of the major stocks such as Balrampur Chini, Bajaj Hindusthan and Dhampur Sugar being posted lower on the ticker.

Amongst the Sensex stocks, the big gainers were HDFC Bank, up nearly five per cent, BHEL, Hero Honda and Larsen & Toubro, all up over three per cent, and ICICI Bank, ONGC, Ranbaxy Laboratories, Reliance Communications and Tata Motors, all up nearly two per cent.

The stocks from the Sensex thirty that were splashed in the red on Wednesday included Bajaj Auto, Cipla, ACC and HDFC.

Information Technology stocks were a mixed bag with an almost equal number of frontline stocks into positive and negative territory.