RIL gains, while markets brood

Global factors and RIL vied with each other to leave their imprints on the day's proceedings. And both did it, their own way. While Greece's deepening debt crisis rattled the global indices and dragged our indices along, RIL seemed to be in a different league alltogether. While the Sensex shed 218 points at 16769 and the Nifty lost 72 points at 5018, the index bellweather emerged as the leading gainer as the Supreme Court ruled in its favour in the gas dispute case. If not for RIL's role in shoring up the indices, the pain would have been greater. 

The U.S. stocks had dived as much as 9 percent at one stage on Thursday as losses triggered by Europe's debt crisis sparked a stampede of automated selling. The Dow Jones finally ended lower by 3.2%, S&P shed 3.2% and Nasdaq lost 3.4%. This was the biggest percentage loss on Wall Street since 1987. And as if in unison with their US markets, the Asian stocks were routed during the day. The Nikkei lost more than 3%, while the Seoul and Shanghai markets shed around 2% each.

Back home, a three-member Supreme Court bench, headed by Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan, ruled in favour of RIL by 2:1. Supreme Court judge P Sathasivam declared that the brothers' memorandum of understanding (MoU) was not binding and the Production Sharing Contract (PSC) will override all the prior agreements. The court also emphasised that the government owned all the gas assets till they reached the users and directed both RIL and RNRL to renegotiate in six weeks.

The index heavyweight came off its intra-day high of Rs 1060 touched immediately after the favourable court verdict, but still ended up 27 points or 2.6% at Rs 1038. And to put the gains in prspective, the stock had touched a low of Rs 991 in early trades. Today's gains marked a welcome break for Reliance Industries. The index barometer has underperformed the market over the past one month, falling 9.83% compared with the Sensex's decline of 5.32%, as of Thursday. Among the other major Sensex gainers, Hindustan Unilever strengthened by 0.9% at Rs 234 and M&M was up 0.7% at Rs 523.

On the other hand, the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani group (ADAG) stocks were battered after the verdict. Reliance Infrastructure was the top loser on the Sensex. The realty company declined by 7% at Rs 979. Reliance Natural Resources plunged 22% to Rs 52. Reliance Power fell 8% at Rs 140. And NTPC, which would be impacted by the verdict, lost 0.8% at Rs 201. The other major losers were Tata Motors (weakened by 6.4% at Rs 762 and DLF (lost 4.4% at Rs 285).

The broader markets fared worse. While the Sensex shed 1.2%, the mid-cap index shed 2.5% and the small-cap space lost a much as 3%. The major losers in the mid-cap space were Ruchi Soya, TVS Motor Company,  Bajaj Hindusthan and Shree Renuka Sugars. And in the small-cap space, Lloyds Metals, Cals Refineries and Ruchi Infrastructure lost around 10 per cent each. And the losers outnumbered the gainers in the ratio of 4:1.

RIL topped the value charts on the BSE with a total turnover of Rs 413.08 crore. This was followed by Tata Steel (Rs 117.73 crore), SBI (Rs 104.49 crore), Reliance Infra (Rs 92.52 crore) and Tata Motors (Rs 76.28 crore).

Jaiprakash Associates led the volume charts with trades of 2.89 million. It was followed by Tata Steel (2.61 million), DLF (1.45 million), Hindalco (1.30 million) and Bharti Airtel (1.00 million).