Sensex vaults 87 pts at close

By agencies   |   Tuesday, 02 August 2005, 19:30 IST
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MUMBAI: With their appetite not subsiding a wee bit, the bulls kept mopping up blue chip stocks cutting across sectors right through the session and the resultant surge in values propelled the benchmark indices Sensex and the Nifty to their new lifetime highs today. Barring the Bankex, which suffered a loss of 0.35 percent and BSE FMCG index, which closed marginally higher, rest of the sectoral indices on the Bombay Stock Exchange finished the session on a high note. While the Sensex, which opened with a positive gap of nearly 14 points at 7683.13 this morning and vaulted to a new high of 7762.80 around late afternoon, ended the day with a huge 1.13 percent or 86.59 points gain at 7756.04, the broader 50 stock Nifty index of the National Stock Exchange closed at 2353.65, netting a gain of 1.54 percent or 35.60 points. The Nifty too recorded a new all-time high of 2357.15 today. As the rally turned extremely broad-based, the midcap and smallcap stocks enjoyed a nice outing as well. Mirroring the rise of stocks in these segments, the BSE Midcap and BSE SMLCAP indices went up 1.99 percent and 1.91% respectively. On the National Stock Exchange, the CNX Midcap 200 index posted a gain of 1.71 percent today. With investors shrugging off concerns over rising international crude prices, there was only one way the indices could move, up north, and what one witnessed on the bourses today was precisely that. Though there were some disappointing numbers from a few big players from India Inc, the positives continued to outnumber the negatives and that proved a strong enough base for the bulls to launch an assault today. Hindustan Petroleum Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation, IBP and Indian Oil Corporation may have reported disappointing quarterly numbers and the major fire that broke out on ONGC's platform in Bombay High last week may have rendered the sector rather slippery over some of the previous few trading sessions, but they all turned in a sterling performance today, playing a prominent role in boosting the sentiment to a marked extent. The decision of the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas to allow the PSU oil companies IOC, ONGC and GAIL India to offload their cross-holdings in each other provided the necessary thrust to the sector. So strong was the momentum of buying in stocks from this sector that the BSE Oil & Gas index recorded an impressive 4.12% gain today. Index heavyweights Reliance Industries (up 4.8 percent), Tata Consultancy Services (up 3.1 percent), State Bank of India (up 1.9 percent), Infosys Technologies (up 1.7 percent) and ONGC (up 1.2 percent) rallied sharply on the back of sustained buying enquiries. Tata Motors remained firm right through the session and registered a handsome gain of 5.25 percent despite closing at Rs 526.90, nearly Rs 4 down from its intra-day high. Bajaj Auto and Maruti Udyog attracted firm support as well, though gains recorded by them were far less pronounced at 1.35 percent and 1.05 percent respectively. Steel maker Tisco (up 2.5 percent), power equipment maker BHEL (up 2.15 percent), power utility players Reliance Energy (up 2.15 percent) and Tata Power (up 1.4 percent), drug maker Dr. Reddy's Laboratories (up 2.1 percent) and Cipla (up 1.05 percent), aluminium sector major Hindalco (up 2 percent) and cement major Grasim Industries (up 1.4 percent) also fared impressively today. ACC, Gujarat Ambuja Cement and NTPC posted modest gains. ITC, HDFC, Wipro, Hero Honda and Bharti Tele-Ventures ended with marginal gains. ICICI Bank went down by as much as 2.45% due to sustained selling on profit taking. Hindustan Lever lost 1.6 percent at Rs 171.25. Ranbaxy Laboratories, the most impressive performer among the index components yesterday, shed 1.3 percent on profit taking. HDFC Bank and Larsen & Toubro closed lower by around 0.9 percent and 0.6 percent respectively. HCL Technologies, GAIL India, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation, Colgate Palmolive, Punjab National Bank, Shipping Corporation of India, IPCL, ABB, Nalco, Dabur India, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Sun Pharmaceuticals, GlaxoSmithKline, Zee Telefilms, MTNL, SAIL and VSNL ended sharply higher. Mahindra & Mahindra lost 1.2 percent on profit taking after recent impressive gains. The most heartening point about the sharp upmove was the fact that the market breadth, which remained highly negative over last few trading sessions, turned extremely positive today. The turnover also rose to a marked extent on the bourses with the National Stock Exchange logging a whopping Rs 7,592.97 crore, far higher than a figure of Rs 5,556.18 crore recorded yesterday.