Sensex pleases all; closes at 11,724 points

Mumbai, Aug 30: Following global cues largely the weakened South East Asian indices, domestic bourses stayed highly volatile today, and at one stage dipped to a low of 11,643.38 points though it managed to recover in the last half an hour of trading to close 17.07 points above the previous close.

The Sensex today closed at 11,723.92 compared to 11,706.85 points yesterday.

A 113 points swing was noticed as the Sensex zoomed to 11,756.08 points and touched a low of 11,643.38 points mostly on account of volatility led by futrues option for August derivatives coming to an end tomorrow and also following the weak Asian indices.

However, despite the positive close midcap was down by 0.09 per cent to 4,840.76 points, and the smallcap was down by 0.35 per cent to 5849.60.

Amongst the sectoral indices Metals sector declined by 2.20 per cent to 8221.80 points following weakness in the metals price on the London Metals Exchange today, Consumer Durables sector was down by 0.61 per cent to 5,307 points, Capital Goods was down by 0.31 per cent to 7,773.13 points, Teck was down by 0.27 per cent to 2863.71 points. The pack of gainers today amongst the indices was led by Oil&Gas up by 0.89 per cent to 5,725.06 points, followed by FMCG up 0.80 per cent to 2013.56 points, and the Banking sector up by 0.66 per cent to 5307.89 points.

The major gainers on the BSE-30 index were Ranbaxy up by 2.29 per cent to Rs 404.55, Grasim Industries up by 1.64 per cent to Rs 2,260.40, ITC up by 1.49 per cent to Rs 187.35, SBI up by 1.14 per cent to Rs 931.65, ACC up by 1.13 per cent to Rs 922.50, Reliance industries up by 1.12 per cent to Rs 1,129.25, Dr Reddy's Lab was up by 0.99 per cent to Rs 718.75, HDFC up by 0.96 per cent to Rs 1,302.35, Tata Motors up by 0.96 per cent to Rs 853.45 and Maruti Udyog up by 0.85 per cent to Rs 862.75.

Besides, the losers on the Sensex were Tata Steel down by 2.01 per cent to Rs 506.60, Reliance Energy down by 1.86 per cent to Rs 439.85, NTPC down by 1.77 per cent to Rs 125.20, Reliance Communications down by 1.36 per cent to Rs 304.90, Hindalco down by 1.23 per cent to Rs 173.35, Bajaj Auto down by 1.09 per cent to Rs 2,687.90, TCS down by 0.61 per cent to Rs 984.10, HDFC Bank down by 0.54 per cent to Rs 840.25, Infosys down by 0.37 per cent 1,798.85 and L&T down by 0.21 per cent to Rs 2,421.45.

The breadth in the broader market was in favour of 1,474 declines as against 1066 advance and 68 scrips that remained unchanged, out of total 2608 scrips that traded on the BSE counters today.

UNI