Sensex up 40 pts led by recovery in blue chip stocks

Mumbai, Aug 25: Despite the global weakness and hike in crude oil price the BSE Sensex was in a resurgent mood today and closed the day 40 points up at 11,572.20, largely on account of buying in the select stocks of the blue chip companies, where profit booking and short covering in the later half of the day assisted in the overall upward movement.

Amongst the BSE sectoral indices Metals led the pack with a gain of 1.62 per cent to 8385.14 points on account of strong performance of metals on the London Metals Exchange and was followed by Consumer Durables up by 1.35 per cent to 3051.11 points as the south-west monsoon slowed down in the later half of the month. PSU sector too grew up by 0.86 per cent to 5481.78 points and Banking sector was up by 0.90 per cent to 5215.97 points, whereas FMCG was up by 0.85 per cent to 1979.84 points.

The Sensex ended the week one per cent up, and same goes for the S&P, CNX, Nifty which too closed the week 0.93 per cent above the previous weeks' close.

The Nikkei share average fell 0.14 per cent on Friday, posting its first weekly loss in five weeks. The Nikkei 225 index ended 21.96 points lower, at 15,938.66. For the week, it fell 1.04 per cent.

The Hang Seng index rose 72.41 points or 0.43 per cent to close at 16,955.45.

The Crude oil prices too inched higher, the Nymex crude oil rising 0.63 cents to US Dollar 72.99 per barrel.

As per provisional data, FIIs sold shares worth Rs 24 crore on 24 August, the day when the Sensex surged 125 points.

Major gainers on the index today were- SBI up by 3.39 per cent to Rs 903.75, Hindalco up by 2.83 per cent to Rs 172.65, HLL up by 2.14 per cent to Rs 236.65, Bajaj Auto up by 2.04 per cent to Rs 2,750.70, Tata Steel up by 1.75 per cent to Rs 526.40, Reliance Communications up by 0.98 per cent to Rs 299.40, TCS up by 0.74 per cent to Rs 974.55, Grasim Industries up by 0.57 per cent to Rs 2,210.00, BHEL up by 0.47 per cent to Rs 2,249.90 and Satyam Computers up by 0.43 per cent to Rs 811.15.

Besides the losers on the index were- Reliance Energy down by 2.23 per cent to Rs 446.20, Tata Motors down by 1.22 per cent to Rs 849.80, NTPC down by Rs 124.90, Dr Reddy's Lab down by 0.81per cent to Rs 1,442.15, Wipro down by 0.78 per cent to Rs 511.55, HDFC down by 0.45 per cent to Rs 850.00, ACC down by 0.38 per cent to Rs 908.65, L&T down by 0.23 per cent to Rs 2,351.70, Ranbaxy down by 0.15 per cent to Rs 388.95, Infosys down by 0.12 per cent to Rs 1,765.45.

The breadth in the broader market was in favour of 1,432 advances as against 1056 declines and 75 unchanged, out of total 2563 scrips that traded on the BSE counters.

UNI

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