The Sensex Continued To Move Up - Nov 1, 2008

The Sensex continued to move up for the third consecutive day with the index registering smart gains on buying in heavyweight and sectoral stocks. The 30-stock benchmark index of the BSE was above 9,300 points at the starting bell and touched the high at 9,870. However, it pared the gains on selling in heavyweights and shed sharply to touch the low of 9,362 towards the close.
The Sensex came close to testing 9,400 towards the day’s close, but ended the session with a gain of 744 points at 9,788. Nifty gained 189 points to close at 2,886.

The breadth of the market was marginally positive. Of the 2,574 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,574 stocks advanced, whereas 919 stocks declined. Eighty one stocks ended unchanged. Of the 13 sectoral indices, BSE Metal surged 10.20% to 5,367 followed by BSE Oil & Gas (up 9.11% to 6,195) and BSE Bankex (up 7.21% to 5,011). The remaining indices also ended higher.

Among the gainers, Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) advanced 23.09% to Rs372.35, HDFC surged 17.48% to Rs1,764, JP Associates added 16.55% to Rs71.85, ICICI Bank advanced 15.50% to Rs399.35, Sterlite Industries gained 14.48% to Rs282.20, Reliance Industries jumped 13.81% to Rs1,370.75 and Reliance Communications was up 13.76% to Rs220.70. However, Ranbaxy Laboratories dropped 1.97% to Rs169.45 and Tata Consultancy Services declined 0.93% to Rs537.45.

Over 1.68 crore Suzlon Energy shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Hindalco Industries (1.34 crore shares), Reliance Petroleum (1.00 crore shares), Unitech (84.98 lakh shares) and Core Projects & Technologies (81 lakh shares).