Market Commentary on Friday - Buoyancy lifts Sensex past 14,400

The market remained upbeat throughout the session and gained 261 points on sustained buying in metal, auto, oil and capital goods stocks. The markets stabilised today after witnessing wild intra-day swings yesterday.

The market regained strength after the Left Front indicated softening its stand on the Indo-US nuclear deal. The Sensex opened on a positive note at 14,237 despite weakness in global indices. As trading progressed, the market gained strength on strong buying in metal, auto, oil and capital goods stocks. A smart rally thereafter and buoyancy in heavyweight towards the close saw the index surge to an intra-day high of 14,455. The Sensex finally ended the session with a gain of 261 points at 14,425, while the Nifty added 75 points to close at 4,190.

Movers & Shakers

• EL Manufacturing rallied sharply on receiving an order worth $18 million for exporting readymade garments.
• Shree Renuka Sugars gained marginally on acquiring the ethanol plant of Dhanuka Petro-Chem.

The market breadth was positive. Of the 2,677 stocks traded on the BSE 1,563 stocks advanced, 1,067 stocks declined and 47 stocks ended unchanged. Among the sectoral indices the BSE Metal index notched up a gain of 2.84% at 10,276 followed by the BSE Auto index (up 2.37% at 4,569), the BSE PSU index (up 2.30% at 6,626) and the BSE CG index (up 2.31% at 12,622).

The heavyweights witnessed a strong buying interest. Tata Motors soared 5.93% at Rs659, BHEL rose 4.72% at Rs1,740, Reliance Energy shot up by 4.22% at Rs736, ACC jumped 3.90% at Rs1,010, Tata Steel added 3.80% at Rs582, SBI gained 3.60% at Rs1,466, Ranbaxy moved up by 3.48% at Rs361 and Satyam Computer was up 3.36% at Rs434. However, Dr Reddy's Lab at Rs626 and HDFC at Rs1,905 inched marginally lower.

Metal stocks notched up significant gains during the day. JSW Steel surged 10.13% at Rs572, Welspun Gujrat scaled up 5.77% at Rs228, Bhushan Steel rose 4.98% at Rs655, Maharashatra Seamless Steel jumped 4.33% at Rs578, Jindal Stainless added 3.52% at Rs145 and SAIL gained 3.22% at Rs145. Over 1.29 crore Nagarjuna Fertiliser shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Tata Teleservices (1.13 crore shares), SEL Manufacturing (1.02 crore shares), IFCI (99.30 lakh shares) and Asian Granite (94.82 lakh shares).

Value wise, SEL Manufacturing registered a turnover of Rs212 crore on the BSE followed by SBI (Rs133 crore), Reliance Industries (Rs99 crore), Asian Granite (Rs97 crore) and Omaxe (Rs90 crore).