Sensex gains 128 pts on buying in IT, metal & refinery shares

Fag-end buying in IT, metals and refinery counters helped the benchmark Sensex to turn the corner, making good its early losses to close up 128 points.

Hectic short coverings in key stocks on the last trading day of the week mainly helped the recovery. IT counters were at the forefront following a sustained fall in the rupee to near the 52 level against the dollar as a major part of their earnings comes from overseas.

The Bombay Stock Exchange 30-share Sensex initially touched a low of 8,047.17 due to weakness in Asian indices on the back of a steep fall on Wall Street on Thursday.      However, good buying support in the concluding session pushed the Sensex up to settle the day at 8,325.82, a rise of 127.90 points or 1.56 per cent over the previous close.

On Thursday, it had tumbled by 248 points or 2.94 per cent. The broad-based 50-share Nifty of the National Stock Exchange also recovered by 43.45 points or 1.69 per cent to 2,620.15 from its last close.

Besides Taiwan, most of the other Asian markets ended in the red today with a fall between 0.30 per cent and 3.50 per cent while the Dow Jones Industrial Average sank 4.09 per cent and the Nasdaq composite shed 4.00 per cent on Thursday. 

US stocks plunged amid a spate of weak economic news, turmoil in companies and disappointment at the announcement on the expected new Chinese economic stimulus plan not coming. However, European indices resumed better. CAC was up 0.41 per cent, DAX 0.76 per cent and FTSE 1.07 per cent.

Satyam Computer surged nearly 20 per cent on Friday on news that the company has received approval from the market regulator SEBI to facilitate a global competitive bidding process to sell a 51 per cent stake.

According to analysts, the recovery seemed to be only a pull-back rally on short coverings and could not be sustained due to host of negative factors like a worsening economy, fall in exports, a high fiscal deficit, sustained selling by foreign funds and concern at the forthcoming general elections.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) remained net sellers and they have pulled out nearly USD 2.1 billion in the year 2009 so far. From index-based shares, HDFC rose by 6.40 per cent, Hindalco by 4.38 per cent, Jaipra Asso by 4.27 per cent, TCS by 3.84 per cent, Wipro by 3.37 per cent, ONGC by 3.31 per cent, Tata Steel by 3.12 per cent and Infosys by 3.08 per cent.

However, Maruti Suzuki declined by 2.77 per cent, HUL by 2.65 per cent, Ranbaxy by 2.15 per cent and ITC by 1.61 per cent. 

Although the Sensex registered gains, the market breadth remained negative, reflecting fall in small-cap and mid-cap counters, as 1,419 shares ended with losses against 993 that gained on the BSE.

The business volume was relatively low at Rs 3,338.60 crore against Rs 3,423.79 crore on Thursday. ICICI Bank was the most active share with the highest turnover of Rs 411.03 crore followed by HDFC (Rs 410.05 crore), RIL (Rs 236.60 crore), Reliance Capital (Rs 159.71 crore) and Educomp (Rs 117.40 crore).

The BSE-100 index rose by 48.67 points or 1.16 per cent to 4,242.16 from 4,193.49 previously. Among the sectoral indices, the BSE-IT firmed up by 61.28 points or 3.05 per cent, the BSE-Oil&Gas by 98.80 per cent or 1.76 per cent and the BSE-Capital Goods by 84.60 points or 1.54 per cent.