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Sensex gains 215 points in volatile trade

MUMBAI — Indian equities notched decent gains amid intraday volatility, extending its winning streak to third straight trading session ahead of the government's trust vote in parliament to be held today.

A strong rally in Asian stocks lifted the investor sentiment. Healthcare pivotals were in demand. Banking stocks notched up modest gains even as capital goods shares declined.

Continuing with its uptrend, the 30-share BSE Sensitive Index (Sensex) opened with a positive gap of 147 points at 13,782. Profit-taking in early trades saw the Sensex pare gains and slip into red to a low of 13,581.

The number, however, soon rebounded and displayed positive trend for remainder of the day on the back of sustained buying in banking and FMCG stocks and saw a high of 13,879 — up 298 points in late noon trades.

The Sensex finally ended with a gain of 215 points at 13,850. In the process, the Sensex has rallied over 10 per cent (1,274) points in the last three days.

The NSE Nifty moved up 67 points to settle at 4,160. Nifty July-end futures were at 4164, at a premium of 4.5 points as compared to spot closing. Sensex has risen 1274.24 points or 10.1 per cent in last three trading sessions from its close of 12575.80 on July 16.

Sensex is down 6436.95 points or 31.72 per cent in the calendar year 2008 so far from its close of 20,286.99 on December 31, 2007.

It is 7356.73 points or 34.69 per cent away from its all-time high of 21,206.77 struck on January 10 this year. The BSE clocked a turnover of Rs43.87 billion from Rs53.3 billion Friday.

NSE's futures & options segment turnover was Rs439.42 billion from Rs527.95 billion on Friday.

The market breadth was marginally negative — out of 2,616 stocks traded, 1,362 declined, 1,169 advanced and 85 remained unchanged.

Among the 30-member Sensex shares, 24 advanced and 6 declined.

Cipla was the star performer of the day, gaining over 5 per cent to Rs226. HDFC Bank, Ranbaxy and NTPC surged 4.7 per cent each to Rs1,083, Rs458 and Rs181, respectively.

ICICI Bank rallied 4.3 per cent to Rs644, and Maruti gained 4 per cent at Rs648.

Hindustan Unilever, Jaiprakash Associates and SBI moved up 3.7 per cent each to Rs228, Rs167 and Rs1,347, respectively. Reliance Communications advanced 2.6 per cent to Rs447, and TCS added 2.3 per cent to Rs813.

Wipro and Reliance were up 2 per cent each at Rs373 and Rs2,153, respectively. ITC, Mahindra & Mahindra, DLF and ONGC were the other prominent gainers - up around 1.5 per cent each — at Rs179, Rs528, Rs463 and Rs955, respectively.

Of the 6 losers from the Sensex list, Satyam has plunged over 4 per cent to Rs367. Ambuja Cements slipped over 2 per cent to Rs81. BHEL shed 1.6 per cent at Rs1,506, and Larsen & Toubro dropped 1.3 per cent to Rs2,513.

Reliance Communication also gained 2.62 per cent to Rs446.60, after it called off tie-up talks with MTN Group. Infrastructure Development Finance Company (IDFC) slumped 14.81 per cent to Rs93.45.