The Hindu Business Line : Sensex witnesses early bull rage; closes at 11,707 points

The stock markets witnessed another early hour bull surge on Tuesday. With positive sentiment derived from the previous day's developments such as the dip in prices of crude and the vibes from the rise in the major stock market indices across most Asian countries, benchmark Indian indices also joined the party right away as soon as the bourses opened for business.

General Market Trend

Opening on a strong note, the two key indices - BSE Sensex and the NSE's Nifty - both shot up within minutes of the commencement of the day's trade. The BSE Sensex shot up to cross the 11,700-point mark immediately after the session opened.

With the exception of a couple of occasions later during the day when it dipped marginally below this level, the Sensex was bound within a 40-point range for the rest of the day's trade.

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At the National Stock Exchange, the Nifty also shot up to cross the 3,425- point mark immediately after the market opened. Later, all through Tuesday's session, the Nifty remained within a 15-point range. Finally, as at close of the session on Tuesday, the BSE Sensex stood at 11,707 points and the Nifty settled at 3,426 points. After Tuesday's 0.7 per cent rise, the two indices have both almost gained ten per cent last month.

Index gainers

The top five gainers from the Nifty index were Maruti Udyog, ITC, Sun Pharmaceuticals, Wipro and HDFC. The top five losers were Hindustan Lever, Tata Steel, BPCL, IPCL and Oriental Bank. Despite the overall positive finish to the indices, gainers barely managed to outnumber losers on both the exchanges.

The top gainers from the BSE Sensex were Reliance Communications, Maruti Udyog, Wipro, NTPC, Cipla, ITC, ONGC, NTPC, Infosys Technologies and BHEL.

Stock Specific Action

Amongst the stocks that were influenced by corporate announcements and other developments, Matrix Laboratories was a prominent loser. The company had announced that a large 71.5 per cent of it's stock (including a possible open offer for 20 per cent) could be acquired from its promoters by Mylan Laboratories Inc. of the US.

The American pharma company has agreed to purchase the stake for a price of Rs 306 per share. The stock however, closed marginally lower at Rs 273.

Another stock, which, despite favourable indicators, failed to post any gains was Bajaj Auto. On Monday, the company had announced that it is setting up a new Rs 2,000-crore greenfield project to manufacture three-wheelers and light four-wheelers at Chakan, near Pune in Maharashtra, marking its foray into the light commercial vehicle (LCV) segment.

It is expected to produce 1.5-lakh LCVs in the first year of operation and the new facility is scheduled to go on stream by 2009. The stock was down marginally at Rs 2,720 at the close of trade on Tuesday.

Yet another stock that was unaffected by potentially positive news was Chemplast Sanmar. The company may be close to announcing the acquisition of a PVC pipes and products manufacturing company based in Chennai.

Despite rumours about the possible acquisition floating in the market, the stock slipped almost a percentage point on Tuesday.

Amongst sectors, with a few exceptions, banking and auto stocks were in the positive and sugar and cement stocks were seen lower.

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