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Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Sensex gains in lacklustre New Year trades


It has been a quiet start for the markets in the New Year. As most of the Asian markets were closed on account of New Year, the Sensex resumed 38 points above its previous close of 20,325. But, slipped immediately to touch the day's low of 20,220 on the back of selling in information technology, oil and consumer durables stocks. However, selective buying in index pivotal, fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) and power stocks helped the Sensex enter the green once again and touch the day's high of 20,395. Lack of buying interest kept the market in a range thereafter. After hovering around its previous close in the afternoon, the Sensex finally closed the session with a gain of 14 points at 20,301. Broad based Nifty closed at 6,148, up nine points.

Broader markets outperformed the frontliners giving markets positive breadth. Of the 2,934 stocks traded on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), 2,282 stocks advanced, 626 stocks declined and 26 stocks ended unchanged. Among the sectoral indices the BSE Realty index moved up by 2.44% at 13,038 followed by the BSE FMCG index (up 2.38% at 2,375) and the BSE Power index (up 2.17% at 4,648). However, the BSE CD index, the BSE CG index, the BSE HC index, the BSE IT index, the BSE Oil & Gas index and the BSE Teck index fell around 1% each.

Reliance Energy witnessed strong buying interest and soared 6.76% at Rs2,279, ITC rose 3.47% at Rs218, Grasim Industries was up 3.03% at Rs3,762, Tata Motors shot up by 2.82% at Rs763, NTPC jumped 2.70% at Rs257, HLL added 1.96% at Rs218 and HDFC gained 1.61% at Rs2,919. However, TCS slipped 2.74% at Rs1,054, Bharti Airtel lost 2.71% at Rs968, Wipro dipped 1.90% at Rs516 and Satyam Computer was down 1.24% at Rs444.

Over 2.41 crore GV Films shares changed hands on the BSE followed by IFCI (2.38 crore shares), GTL Infrastructure (1.50 crore shares), Centurion Bank of Punjab (1.50 crore shares) and Hindustan Motors (1.15 crore shares).

Valuewise, Reliance Energy registered a turnover of Rs311 crore on the BSE followed by Essar Oil (Rs247 crore), IFCI (Rs232 crore), Reliance Petroleum (Rs208 crore) and GTL Infrastructure (Rs152 crore).