The Hindu Business Line : Late-hour buying lifts sluggish Sensex

Pointers
Advances outnumber the decliners on a sluggish day.
Metals, capital goods and oil and gas were the gainers.
Activity in the BSE mid cap and small cap space.

Markets opened on a weak note on Monday taking cues from the Asian Markets. Most part of the day, the BSE Sensex moved in range-bound. But thanks to some buying support from market participants during the mid-session and final-hour trading, it gained 47 points to close at 11619. The BSE Mid-Cap and Small-Cap indices too gained marginally.

Buying was witnessed in sector such as capital goods, metals, and oil and gas.

The overall breadth of the market was in favour of advances. The advances outnumbered declines by a ratio of 1.4:1.

New listing

Tech Mahindra, formerly Mahindra British Telecom, listed on Monday. The IPO issue, which was oversubscribed close to 70 per cent, had a warm welcome by the market. The issue price at Rs 365 per share, got listed on the BSE at Rs 525 and went on touch day's high of Rs 566 before closing at Rs 552.80. A total of 82.3 lakh shares changed hands on the opening day.

Buzzing stocks

Larsen & Toubro has announced the record date for the issue of bonus shares. The stock gained 2.6 per cent to close at Rs 2,414.50.

Board of directors of Bank of India cleared a proposal for the bank's entry into life insurance business. The street greeted the news, as the stock gained 2.4 per cent.

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Other prominent gainers in the BSE were HMT, Corporation Bank, Rolta India, Neyveli Lignite, HCL Infosystems, FCS Software and Aurionpro Solutions.

Sector focus

Metals stocks found some support. The stocks such as Sesa Goa, Hindalco Industries, SAIL, Sterlite Industries and Nalco gained by 1-2 per cent on a sluggish day. The lone loser in the space was Maharashtra Seamless.

Esab India, ABB, Areva T&D, BEML and Bharat Electronics were the gainers in capital goods space. Jyoti Structures and SKF India were the losers.

Oil and gas sector, which was neglected for a quite long period, had some good time on Monday's trading. HPCL led the pack by gaining 4.9 per cent to end at Rs 269.6. BPCL, Reliance Industries and Essar Oil gained by 1-2.5 per cent. Aban Loyd Chiles was the lone loser from this sector.

Consumer durable sector bore the burnt of the market. Videocon Industries, Blue Star and Lloyd Electrical Engineers were the losers. However, the jewellery stocks such as Gitanjali Gems and Goldiam International added one per cent to the previous close.

Fresh buying has boosted tea stocks. Harrison Malayalam, Jayshree Tea, Warren Tea, Williamson Magor and Goodricke added 3-4 per cent for the day.

Stock-specific action

Exide Industries surged 4 per cent on back of the announcement that it plans to invest Rs 60.4 crore to set up a battery plant in Haldia in West Bengal.

Matrix Laboratories announced that Mylan Laboratories would acquire 71.5 per cent of the company's shares at Rs 306 a share. The stock gained marginally to close at Rs 277.5.

Stone India gained Rs 23 to close at Rs 263.8 on the back of news that the company received an initial defence freight car upgradation order from the Ministry of Defence. This marks a major breakthrough for the company in the Railway Services & project arena.

Kilburn Engineering gained 4.9 per cent. The company announced that it bagged an order worth Rs 1.4 crore to supply drum dryer to Columbian Chemicals, Canada.

Gainers and losers

Ranbaxy Laboratories, Tata power, Gujarat Ambuja Cements, Hindustan Lever, GE Shipping and Moser Baer were the gainers on the NSE. Dr Reddy's, GAIL, Zee Telefilms, Cipla, Sun Pharma and HDFC were the conspicuous losers.