The Hindu Business Line : Metal, capital goods stocks shine in listless trading

It was a lacklustre day on Dalal Street as markets failed to keep the momentum witnessed over the last one week. In sync with its Asian peers, the bellwether Sensex closed flat at 11,904.6, while the broader Nifty settled down at 3,473.7.

The Sensex, which has been surging over the last few sessions, opened on a flat note on Tuesday morning. It remained range-bound throughout the day and closed about 10 points lower than its previous close; widening the gap to the psychological 12,000-mark. The market sentiment appeared evenly poised, reflected in the advances to decline ratio of 1:1.

Metals shine

In an otherwise sluggish market, it was the metals stocks that stole the show. Buoyed by news reports on expansion plans, Ramsarup Industries rallied by seven per cent to Rs 105.2. Jindal Stainless, Sterlite Industries, Hindustan Zinc, Maharashtra Seamless, Hindalco and Tata Steel also spurted on the back of strong buying support.

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Mirroring the gains in these stocks, the BSE METAL outperformed the sectoral indices with a gain of 1.9 per cent.

Capital goods stocks buzz

Buoyed by reports that investment in the economy is set to rise over the next few years, stocks from the capital goods and construction space saw widespread buying interest. Gammon India, Alstom Projects, Tantia Constructions flared up by eight per cent on an average. D.S. Kulkarni, BHEL, Sadbhav Engineering, Thermax and Jyoti Structures also recorded smart gains.

Stock-specific action

Encouraged by positive outcome to its proposed restructuring exercise, United Western Bank staged a sharp recovery. After being battered down on Monday, the stock gained 8.4 per cent to close at Rs 17.5.

JMC Projects surged by about five per cent following the management's decision to reward shareholders through rights issue.

Simplex Infrastructures moved up by 1.4 per cent following announcement that the company had bagged orders worth Rs 250 crore in Sri Lanka and India. Era Constructions also added five per cent to its stock price after the company won a contract worth Rs 115 crore.

Buoyed by news flow that 3i Infotech had acquired G4 Software Technologies, the stock price advanced by five per cent.

Buzzing stocks

Ramakrishna Forgings was on fire as the stock shot up by 12.4 per cent. Jindal Poly Films, Goldiam International, Unitech and McNally Bharat were other buzzing stocks that were locked at the upper circuit.

Mid-caps and small-caps witnessed widespread action compared to their large-cap counterparts. Shaw Wallace, Finolex Industries, Torrent Pharma, Mercator Lines and Deepak Fertilizers netted handsome gains among others. Among the small-caps, stocks of Vimta Labs,Gati and Sona Koya Steering ended the day with significant gains.

Select stocks in the oil and gas sector also managed to notch healthy gains. Hindustan Oil Exploration, Gujarat Petronet, IndianOil and ONGC ended on a positive note.

Bearish sentiment appeared strong across the counters of large-cap stocks that failed to propel the index to higher levels. Dr Reddy's, Wipro, Infosys, L&T, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Tata Motors succumbed to selling pressure.

Other gainers on the Nifty included Canara Bank, Bank of India, Polaris Software, TVS Motor, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Cipla, ACC, Reliance Energy and Cyber Media.

Zee Telefilms, BPCL, ITC, Suzlon Energy, Lupin, Asian Paints, Reliance Capital, LIC Housing Finance, GE Shipping and RPG Cables figured in the losers' pack.