The Hindu Business Line : Weakness in Reliance, Ranbaxy drags Sensex

AFTER opening on a firm note, the benchmark indices held ground in the positive territory before slipping into the red towards the close of the trading session.

After touching a high of The BSE Sensex closed at 6308.54, down 111.92 points from Friday's close of 6420. The S&P CNX Nifty ended the day at 1982 down 1.66 per cent or 33.5 points from Friday's close of 2015.5.

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The weak trend in companies such as Reliance Industries, Tata Motors, Tata Power, Infosys and Ranbaxy Laboratories was instrumental in pulling the Sensex down. Ranbaxy Laboratories was down by 3 per cent to close at Rs 1164.5. The share price of Infosys was down by 2.76 per cent or Rs 24.4 to Rs 1994.15.

Hindustan Lever, Zee Telefilms and BHEL were the handful of gainers from the stocks that form part of the index. The share price of Hindustan Lever increased by 1.1 per cent to settle at Rs 142.5. The Zee Telefilms stock ended the day at Rs 164.8 up by 1.17 per cent over previous day's close of Rs 162.9.

Amidst the bearish sentiment that prevailed on Monday, buying interest was evident in the companies from fertiliser industry, sugar and select stocks from the cement industry. In the fertiliser market, SPIC and Chambal Fertiliser and Oswal Chemicals were the prominent gainers.

Stocks such as Mangalam Cement, Andhra Cement and Shree Digvijay Cement were prominent gainers from the cement segment. From the sugar industry, Dhampur Sugar, Rajshree Sugar and Balrampur Chini managed to sneak into the gainers list.

A few other stocks that ended the day posting smart gains included MRF, Tata Finance, Divi Labs, Mercator Lines, Cranes Software. The share price of Tata Finance did quite a star turn, after it was announced on Friday that it would be merged with Tata Motors. The stock gained a neat Rs 6.10 to end at Rs 59.85, accompanied by a seven-fold increase in volumes on the BSE. Tata Motors, however, did not have a great day at the office, shedding Rs 18.15 to end at Rs 475.10.

It might have been a dark day at the bourses, but that did not prevent a few stocks from building on the gains they had posted over the past few trading sessions. Petronet LNG, which has been buzzing over the past two trading weeks, gained a further Rs 3.25 to close at Rs 45.85. About 1.50 crore shares were traded on the counter. The stock has gained 50 per cent over the last 11 trading sessions.

Another stock that has been flying around in recent times, Royal Airways, continued its upward climb; the stock put on Rs 1.8 to settle at Rs 41.80, on the back of trading volumes of about 25 lakh shares. The company, which proposes to offer low-cost airline services from April, has been on a dizzying run, leaping seven-fold since September last.

Geodesic Information Systems was another stock that continued its relentless upward march. The company had announced, after close on trading on Friday, a bonus issue in the ratio of 1:1 and also a 5:1 stock split. The stock rose by Rs 32.3 to end the day at Rs 951.45, on trading volumes of about 18,000 shares. Geodesic's stock has seen an appreciation of close to 40 per cent over the past two trading weeks. In another news-related move, the stock of Rico Auto jumped by Rs 25.95 to finish at Rs 576. The company had announced, after close of trading on Friday that its board would meet on January 17th to consider a stock split.

A few prominent losers included JBM Auto Components, Himachal Futuristics, Shyam Telecom, Mid-Day Multimedia, Kothari Sugars, SB&T International, Indraprastha Gas, Tata Power, Monsanto India, Trent, Dr Reddy's Labs and GlaxoSmithKline Pharma.

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