Markets piggy back on global cues

The Dow Jones had rallied overnight on news of positive global cues. And as if on cue, the sun rose on the Asian bourses as well. The positive sentiment, inevitably, rubbed off on our markets. The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 136 points at 16,829. The markets thereafter went into hibernation, trading in a narrow range of 100 points between a high of 16,907 points and a low of Rs 16,802. It finally ended at 16, 852, up 159 points. The Nifty also traded in a narrow range on either side of the 5000 mark before closing abover the 5,000 mark yet again. It ended at 5,006, up 47 points.

The leading sectoral indices on the BSE were IT, healthcare and Teck, which were up 2.2%, 1.6% and 1.5% respectively.

The top gainers among the BSE scrips were Sun Pharma (up 6% at Rs 1390), TCS (stronger by 3.9% at Rs 610 and ICICI (higher by 3.1% at Rs 864). Wipro and ONGC gained between 2% and 3% each.

The top losers on the BSE were SBI (down 2.2% at Rs 2090), Grasim (shed 1.6% at Rs 2,788) and Jaiprakash Associates (lower by 1.3% at Rs 234).

The leading NSE gainers were Sun Pharma (up 5.5% at Rs 1,380), Cipla (4.7% at Rs 279), TCS (higher by 2.8% at Rs 610) and ONGC (firmer by 3.12% at Rs 1,195).

The top NSE losers were BPCL (down 2.4% at Rs 567), Ranbaxy (lower by 2.4% at Rs 399) and Jindal Steel (weaker by 2.3% at Rs 583).

The market breadth was positive. Out of 2,852 stocks traded on the BSE, there were 1,655 advancing stocks as against 1,111 declines.

Reliance topped the combined (BSE+NSE) value chart, registering a turnover of Rs 1,150.68 crore, followed by Educomp at Rs 627.23 crore, SBI at Rs 522.13 crore, Unitech at Rs 452.96 crore and ICICI Bank at Rs 410.99 crore.

Unitech topped the combined volume chart, clocking volumes of 41.65 million shares, followed by Suzlon at 28.24 million, Ispat Industries at 27.43 million, IFCI (24.41 million) and IDBI (20.31 million).