The Hindu Business Line : Sensex bounces back from lows

AFTER drifting lower during the early part of Monday's trading session, stock prices bounced back strongly. Sensex nearly gained 200 points from its intra-day low of about 5,870.

The sharp rise in stocks such as ICICI Bank, Zee Telefilms, Hero Honda, Tata Motors, Tata Steel and HDFC helped the Sensex end the day strongly.

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Sensex gained 1.98 per cent while Nifty gained about 1.83 per cent. Action was riveted more around large-cap stocks and mid-cap stocks remained range-bound. The CNX Midcap 200 ended the day with a marginal gain of about 0.3 per cent.

A pack of stocks from the IT sector recorded significant gains during the day. iGate Solutions led the gainers with a 7 per cent rise. The bagging of a multi-year deal with Green Point Mortgage, a large international company, spurred the stock. Aztec Software also gained 7 per cent in the wake of news reports that the company is set to make acquisitions. The stock of Compudyne Winfosytems, which announced a business-cum-equity tie-up with a US company also rose 6 per cent. The stock of Financial Technologies spurted up by 10 per cent. Financial Technologies announced during the day that it would consider a preferential allotment.

The stock price of Suven Life Sciences also strengthened by 3.7 per cent amid news that the company has completed a preferential allotment of shares. Announcement of fresh issue of shares through the GDR route by Moser Baer saw the stock firm up by 1.5 per cent. In contrast, Bharat Forge recorded a decline of about 1.2 per cent even as the company announced a rights offer of shares and warrants.

Other gainers included Strides Arcolab, Heritage Foods, Jyoti Structures and Gujarat NRE Coke. Strides Arcolab announced that it would set-off deferred revenue expenditure against share premium. The stock gained 6 per cent. Jyoti Structures announced that it had bagged an order of about Rs 85 crore. The stock gained 5 per cent.

Heritage Foods announced that Birla SunLife Mutual Fund's stake in the company has crossed 5 per cent. The stock firmed up by nearly 4 per cent. Gujarat NRE Coke too rose nearly 4 per cent. The company announced that it was completing the equity issue formalities pursuant to the amalgamation of Gujarat NRE Power with itself.

Stocks such as Gravity India, Indo Asian Fusegear, Noida Toll-Bridge, RPG Life Sciences and Blow Plast gained between 10 and 20 per cent.

Other major gainers included stocks such as SRF, Bajaj Tempo, FDC, Balrampur Chini and Thomas Cook. These stocks gained between 9 and 10 per cent.

There were only buyers in stocks such as Bajaj Tempo, IP Rings, Grauer & Weil, FDC, Aarti Industries, Praj Industries and Pantaloon Textiles.

Banking stocks too remained much sought after. Stocks such as ICICI Bank, Corporation Bank and Canara Bank gained more than 4 per cent. A host of other public sector banking sector stocks gained between 1 and 2 per cent. Interestingly, new private sector bank stocks such as HDFC Bank, UTI Bank, and IDBI Bank along with old private sector banks such as Federal Bank and Karur Vysya Bank lost value.

Other major losers during the day included shipping company stocks - Chowgule Steamships and Mercator Lines. Stocks such as Satnam Overseas, IL&FS Investment Managers that have surged in value in recent months also logged declines.

The stock of Tata Chemicals declined by about 4 per cent after the company announced only a 7 per cent rise in profits. The recently listed media stock, TV Today, also lost value.