Sensex closes 98 points up; capital goods stocks zoom

Mumbai, March 2: A benchmark index of Indian equities markets, the 30-scrip Sensitive Index (Sensex), closed Monday’s trade up 98 points or 0.33 percent. The wider 50-scrip Nifty of the tiol Stock Exchange (NSE) also made gains during the day’s trade. It closed Monday’s trade 54.90 points or 0.62 percent up at 8,956.75 points. The Sensex of the S&P Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which opened at 29,533.42 points, closed the day’s trade at 29,459.14 points, up 97.64 points or 0.33 percent from the previous day’s close at 29,361.50 points. The Sensex touched a high of 29,576.32 points and a low of 29,259.77 points in the intra-day trade. According to alysts, the markets, after a positive opening, plunged on the back of higher level profit-booking and weak HSBC manufacturing purchasing mager’s index. However, the markets rebounded in the closing session.

“The market has positively taken the government’s intent to spend more. Hence Infrastructure and allied segments are in the interest,” said Vinod ir, head-fundamental research, Geojit BNP Paribas Fincial Services.

“The government has clearly provided its intention in the budget and it is likely to be active in the budget session. The focus will shift to the impending bills in the session. Important bills like land, labour, coal and insurance are likely to come for discussion during the session.”  In the day’s trade, healthy buying took place in capital goods, bank, healthcare, power and oil and gas sectors.

However, heavy selling was observed in fast moving consumer goods (FMCG), consumer durables, automobile, technology, entertainment and media (TECK) and metal indices of the BSE. The S&P BSE capital goods index rocketed up 636.03 points, bank index zoomed 408.75 points, healthcare index increased by 296.11 points, power index gained 33.07 points and oil and gas index was higher by 20.81 points. The S&P BSE FMCG index plunged 155.79 points, followed by consumer durables index which was lower by 120.27 points, automobile index lost 57.79 points, TECK index fell 14.78 points and metal index slipped by 6.64 points.

The major Sensex gainers were: Axis Bank, up 5.64 percent at Rs.648; Cipla, up 4.96 percent at Rs.715.30; BHEL, up 4.44 percent at Rs.273.80; Larsen and Toubro (L&T), up 4.34 percent at Rs.1,843.50; and Hindustan Unilever, up 2.80 percent at Rs.935.25.

The losers were: ITC, down 4.97 percent at Rs.343.30; Bajaj Auto, down 4.03 percent at Rs.2,074.75; Bharti Airtel, down 2.18 percent at Rs.349.40; Hero MotoCorp, down 2.16 percent at Rs.2,624.75; and Tata Motors, down 1.60 percent at Rs.584.15. (IANS)