Fanfare For An Uncommon Man
Aggressive institutional buying interest continued to push the benchmark indices northward, despite the fact that it was the last day of settlement on the Bombay Stock Exchange(BSE). The BSE Sensex crossed the psychological 4,100 mark during intra-day trading, but retreated to 4,075.47 at close, a gain of 60.79 points or 1.51 per cent over the previous close. The S&P CNX Nifty closed at 1,165.35, up 17.25 or 1.5 points over the previous close.
Traded turnover on the BSE moved up sharply as compared to Thursday, to Rs 2,138.74 crore while the NSE clocked a traded turnover of Rs 3,120.72 crore.
Among Mid cap indices, the BSE 100 posted a gain of 20.89 points or 1.19 per cent over the previous close. The CNX Nifty Junior edged up 17.95 points or 0.9 per cent over the previous close to 1,992.75.
Intra-day movements
Buoyed by Thursday's strong closing, the BSE Sensex opened at 4,041.21 with a gap of about 27 points over the previous close. After testing 4,077 levels, the Sensex plummeted to an intra-day low of 4,000.07 which caused a mild panic among market players. However, according to technical analysts, this intra-day correction of about 77 points is a healthy one for the market. The Sensex then crossed the 4,100 mark to touch an intra-day high of 4,102.03 before retreating below 4,100 levels at close. The S&P CNX Nifty opened the day at 1,157.60, with a gap of about nine points over the previous close. It dipped to an intra-day low of 1,144.90 and then bounced to an intra-day high of 1,165.35.
Broader picture
An interesting aspect of yesterday's rally was that the difference between advances and declines narrowed. On the BSE, there were 738 advances as compared to 716 declines while 201 stocks remained unchanged over their previous levels. On Thursday, the numbers were 809, 570 and 51 respectively. On the NSE, 504 stocks advanced, 444 retreated while 79 remain unchanged at Thursday's levels. This, compared to the previous day's figures of 595, 312 and 79 respectively.
The Sensex and S&P CNX Nifty moved up by nearly 1.5 per cent while mid cap indices moved by nearly 1 per cent on a average. This clearly indicates that most of the action continues to be restricted to large cap stocks and is yet to trickle down to second line stocks.
Among side counters, the Tata Tea stock gained in a big way, moving up by 8 per cent to end the day at Rs 484.10 on the NSE, a gain of Rs 35.90 over the previous close.
On the NSE, the Reliance scrip replaced Satyam Computer as the most actively
traded stock, clocking a turnover of Rs 383.63 crore for the day. Satyam Computer had to be content at the second place with a turnover of Rs 325.14 crore while ITC continued to be third at Rs 299.81 crore. On BSE, the top three actively traded scrips were Pentafour Software, RIL and ITC, in that order with a turnover of Rs 242.08, 182.22 and 180.65 respectively.
Spotlight
SBI was the star performer, hitting the upper end of the circuit filter on the BSE and NSE. According to market players, there has been sustained institutional buying in