Moderate gains logged

STOCK REPORT

After registering a hefty intra-day gain of more than 100 points in the special trading session held on Sunday, the benchmark Sensex failed to hold on to higher levels and closed moderately up by 12 points.

Despite being a weekend trading session, held by the BSE and NSE from 10.30 am to 11.30 am to update their software, significant buying interest was witnessed on select counters.

It pushed the Sensex above the 10,500-point mark in intraday trade with robust purchases seen on some of the counters.

After opening with a gain of 42.30 points at 10,443.60, the Sensex rose to as high as 10,510.07 soon after the trading session commenced. However, the index closed only 11.63 points higher at 10,412.93 after paring most of its earlier gains.

The National Stock Exchange's 50-share index Nifty settled 7.60 points up at 3,050.30, after surging to an intraday high of 3,083.00. The index had opened at 3,043.15 as against the previous close of 3,042.70.

Tata Coffee emerged as the star performer on the bourses on Sunday with the scrip jumping 20 per cent to Rs 325.65, on the BSE.

The stock surged ahead after the company announced the acquisition of US-based Eight O'clock Coffee Company for $220 million, which it said would help the company to become a leading and fully integrated player in the global coffee industry.

Among the blue chip scrips, Tata Steel firmed up 3.93 per cent to close at Rs 532.40 and SAIL rose 3.22 per cent to Rs 81.80 on expectations that the world's two largest steel makers Mittal Steel and Arcelor were close to finalising a merger deal later on Sunday.

Hectic buying was also seen on other steel counters such as Essar Steel, Jindal Steel, JSW Steel and Sesa Goa.

Tata Steel, ONGC, Dr Reddy's Labs, Ranbaxy, Wipro, Hero Honda and L&T were among the biggest gainers among the Sensex stocks and settled with a rise of 1-2 per cent.

However, HDFC Bank, SBI, Bharti Tele, Reliance Energy, BHEL and HDFC moved down. There were 14 Sensex scrips that settled in the red, as against 16 shares moving up in Sunday's special trading session.

However, the overall market breadth was considerably positive with more than 70 per cent of the total BSE scrips advancing ahead and nearly 28 per cent closing in the red.

Robust buying was seen on a host of midcap and small-cap counters as well, as both the BSE Midcap and Small-cap indices closed with gains of more than 1 per cent.