Sensex in range bound trade dips 14 pts, metals strong

Mumbai, Oct 20 (UNI) The Bombay Stock Exchange Sensitive Index (Sensex) today in a range bound trade closed down by 14.19 points to close at 12,709.40, as metals sector energised the index over assumptions of having a positive and strong merger of Tata Steel and Corus today.

Finally Corus has accepted Tata steel offer of US Dollar 7.6 billion for its merger with Tata Steel. Now the combined capacity of the two companies will be 24 mtpa (metric tonnes per annum). The deal has come as a biggest steel companies merger after Laxmi Mittal took over Arcelor earlier in August.

The deal is expected to give big boost to the metals sector in coming days. However, J Mehra, Director Essar Group feels otherwise, according to him this deal is not going to have any effect on Indian steel industry, as Corus is a London based company. Also currently consolidation is the name of game and what Tata has done is just an extension of that.

Now what is noticeable on the BSE sectoral indices that all the sectors where the results are still to be declared and those which have declared but loss figures, are trading in the red whereas those sectors where heavyweigts have declared their results and positive figures are now in green. Based on these figures it can be said that cautiousness is genuine and higher closing figures can once again be reached at the end of second financials.

FMCG was down by 1.15 per cent, IT by 0.54 per cent and the PSU sector by 0.15 per cent. Metals however, have risen by 0.75 per cent and Consumer Durables by 1.15 per cent.

The breadth in the broader market was in favour of 1,293 advances as against 1,132 declines out of total 2,515 scrips that traded the BSE counters today.

Major gainers on the BSE-30 index were Reliance Energy up by 1.64 per cent to Rs 459.80, Tata Steel up by 1.23 per cent to Rs 507.85, Bharti Airtel up by 1.13 per cent to Rs 496.70, Wipro up by 1.10 per cent to Rs 556.20, Cipla up by 0.77 per cent to Rs 262.50, Gujarat Ambuja up by 0.66 per cent to Rs 121.45, Reliance Industries up by 0.54 per cent to Rs 1202.05, Hindalco up by 0.51 per cent to Rs 187.70, NTPC up by 0.44 per cent to Rs 126.10 and SBI up by 0.43 per cent to Rs 1,041.20.

Besides the losers were Satyam Computers down by 2.82 per cent to Rs 428.35, ITC down by 2.52 per cent to Rs 185.95, Bajaj Auto down by 1.70 per cent to Rs 2,741.55 , Dr Reddy's lab down by 0.99 per cent to Rs 724.90, Maruti down by 0.57 per cent to Rs 937.20,HDFC down by 0.40 per cent to Rs 1449.60 and HDFC Bank down by 0.38 per cent to Rs 960.85.

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