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Friday, July 24, 2009

Auto steel the show


Despite mixed signals from Asian markets, the Sensex was 41 points up at 9035 at opening bell. While the mood remained upbeat on strong buying in auto and realty stocks, the rally gathered steam in afternoon trades, as the Sensex touched the high of 15419. However, the Sensex failed to sustain its gains, as a sharp bout of profit taking pushed the index below 15200 mark to an intra-day low of 15169. Later in the day, the firm opening in European markets and sustained buying in select heavy weights, auto and realty stocks turned the tide and the Sensex entered into positive territory again. But, the index remained range-bound though with a positive bias thereafter due to some profit booking at higher levels and lack of buying interest. The Sensex closed the session 148 points up at 15379 and the broader Nifty ended 45 points higher at 4569.



The market breadth, the number of advancing shares to declining shares, was positive. For every falling share on the BSE there were almost two shares that rose. Of the 13 sectors, only banking sector was negative. BSE Auto, the auto index, led the list of gaining sectoral indices rising by 5.14% for the day followed by BSE Realty that added 4.26% and BSE Metal that advanced 2.39%. BSE CD moved up 2.37%, BSE IT gained 1.93% and BSE Teck advanced 1.87%. The remaining indices gained nearly 1% each.



Among major gainers, Tata Motors flared up 9.72% to Rs373.50, DLF added 6.49% to trade at Rs393.65, Maruti Suzuki India shot up by 6.35% toRs1 377.85, Tata Steel flared up 6.06% to Rs439.90, JP Associates moved up 5.16% to Rs241.50, Hero Honda advanced 4.19% to Rs1735.60, Mahindra & Mahindra scaled up 3.62% to Rs830.85 and Hindalco surged 3.31% at Rs93.70. However, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries slipped 2.21% to Rs1,245.95 and HDFC shed 1.65% at Rs2,412.05. State Bank of India, Reliance Industries, ACC, ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank booked marginal losses.


Mahindra Satyam was the most actively traded share with over 3.37 crore shares changing hands on BSE followed by Suzlon Energy (3.27 crore shares), Unitech (2.29 crore shares), Ispat Industries (2.23 crore shares) and Firstsource Solutions (1.91 crore shares)