The Hindu Business Line : Markets ramp up pace, close with gains

Buoyed by a positive sentiment, the markets ramped up pace through the day. The Sensex, which opened with a gap of 50 points, made a steady progress to close with sharp gains of about 1.1 per cent. Supported by Reliance Industries, BHEL, ONGC and banking stocks, the S&P CNX Nifty charted a similar course and closed with a one per cent gain.

Buzzing Stocks

Development Credit Bank, which made its debut recently, continued to attract interest in the markets with about 50 lakh shares changing hands on the BSE. The stock closed with a 1.5 per cent gain at Rs 52. IFCI was yet another stock in the financial sector that attracted significant interest.

Sector Watch

The banking sector cornered a large part of market participants' attention with volumes on frontline stocks surging. Dena Bank was among the prominent gainers in the public sector list. Other gainers in the PSU fold included Union Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Bank of Baroda, Andhra Bank, Bank of India and Vijaya Bank. Centurion Bank of Punjab topped the gainers list among private sector banks. Stocks such as ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, IndusInd Bank, Jammu & Kashmir Bank, Kotak Bank and UTI Bank also figured in the gainers list. The capital goods sector was in the limelight with the sector-oriented index on the BSE recording a 1.5 per cent gain to close at 6,737 points. Though the advances-declines ratio was evened out between the gainers and losers, significant gains in select constituents contributed to the surge. Batliboi, Atlas Copco, JMC Projects, HMT, Thermax, BHEL and Siemens gained by more than two per cent.

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Market participants resorted to across the board selling on sugar counters. Dhampur Sugar, which is yet to disclose results for the September 2006 quarter, took a significant beating with stock closing lower by about five per cent. Uttam Sugar and Mawana Sugar also closed deep in the red. Frontline stocks - Triveni Engineering, Balrampur Chini and Bajaj Hindustan shed more than two per cent. Shree Renuka Sugars, however, bucked the trend by closing with a marginal gain of about 0.6 per cent.

Event-Specific Action

Punj Lloyd attracted significant attention on the back of announcements that the company bagged engineering, procurement and construction contracts worth Rs 803.70 crore for the Doha Urban Pipeline Relocations Project from Qatar Petroleum. Accompanied by a surge in volumes, the stock marched ahead by six per cent.

Simplex Infrastructure was also in the limelight recording a nine-fold rise in volumes. Announcements that the company had bagged orders worth Rs 212 crore appears to have driven market participants with the stock closing with gains of about seven per cent.

The announcement of Indian Hotels' planned acquisition of Ritz Carlton Hotel in Boston attracted lukewarm response in the markets. While volumes remained flat, the stock inched ahead by about one per cent.

Other Gainers/Losers

Ingersoll-Rand, LIC Housing Finance, Reliance Petroleum, IDBI, Nicholas Piramal, Sterlite Industries, Container Corporation and Moser-Baer were among the top gainers on the Junior Nifty. Major losers in this list included Tata Motors, Patni Computer Systems, Bharat Electronics, Polaris, Chennai Petroleum, Ashok Leyland, IBP, Indian Overseas Bank and Cummins India.