619 stocks freeze at upper circuit

Frenzied buying is back in Dalal Street as the stocks of as many as 809 companies On Monday hit the upper level of circuit filters.

At close, 619 of the stocks, accounting for 25 per cent from the non-A group, were frozen at the upper circuit filter on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).

The stocks traded under non-A group hitting upper circuit limit indicates the return of retail investors, say market analysts.

The 15-share Instanex Retail Index On Monday was up 1.77 per cent compared to 1.51 per cent rise of the BSE Sensex, indicating that the traders are now buying mid- and small cap stocks.

Buying in non A-group stocks reflected in the trading volumes, which went up by 12.5 per cent Pn Monday and by over 50 per cent in the last three trading days.

However, trading volumes in A-group stocks decline by 12.7 per cent On Monday and was up 8 per cent in three days.

Gautam Chand, CEO OF Instanex Capital, expects that FIIs and local speculators will take Indian equity markets higher over the next few weeks. India is a liquidity-driven market that is usually led by FIIs.

Out of the 619 stocks that closed at its higher level circuit, as many as 37 were frozen at 20 per cent, 48 at 10 per cent, 499 at 5 per cent and the remaining 35 stocks at 2 per cent.

The sectoral trend shows that 89 stocks were from non-banking financial companies (NBFC), 74 from information technology, 63 from textiles, 23 from constructions, 19 each from sugar and engineering, 17 from pharmaceuticals and 15 from the trading sector.

Among the A group stocks, GMDC and NMDC were frozen at 20 per cent circuit, while Jai Corp and Hindustan Copper were frozen at 10 per cent upper circuit.