Sensex rebounds to close 202.19 pts up

Mumbai, Mar 5: After sliding by over 1200 points in the last two sessions, the Sensex today climbed up by 202.19 points on the Bombay Stock Exchange to close at 16,542.08 in volatile trade, despite positive global cues. The benchmark Sensex, which opened with a negative gap and shed over 86 points to touch a low at 16,253.02 in early trade, rebounded in late trade to touch a day's high of 16,595.64, gaining 255.75 points on fresh inflows.

Index heavyweight stocks like Reliance Industries witnessed an upward momentum and Software stocks were in demand in late trade and gained nearly four per cent on reports of the Rupee weakening. However, Banking, realty and power stocks failed to move out of the negative zone. Banking stocks, including public sector bank stocks, tumbled about six per cent, on an average, on expectations that PSU banks would also have to bear dent of subprime crisis due to their overseas exposure, market analysts said.

Sectoral index on BSE exhibited a mixed picture of green and red, while Mid-Cap and Small-Cap ended the day in negative zone with a loss of 0.95 and 1.24 per cent respectively. BSE registered a turnover of Rs 5348 crore as against Rs 5,819.09 in the previous session.

Mjority of 30 stocks from the Sensex pack closed on a positive note. However, the market breadth remained weak. European markets were positive today and Asian markets were mixed.

The market will remain closed tomorrow on account of Mahashivratri. Trading on the bourses was on hold for 45 minutes between 1145 hrs to 1230 hrs due to sun outage and trading was extended till 1615 hrs today.

The broader based Nifty index of National Stock Exchange surged by 57.15 points to close at 4,921.40. The NSE's futures&options (F&O) segment turnover was Rs 33581.65 crore, which was lower than Rs 40644.5 crore yesterday. Frontline stocks ICICI Bank fell 1.15 pc to Rs 960.40, off session's low of Rs 925, Reliance Industries (RIL) rose 2.29 per cent to Rs 2292.75 on reports that its unit Reliance Retail has signed a joint venture with Pearle Europe for launch of a chain of optical stores in India, while ONGC rose 3.05 pc to Rs 987.90 The top Sensex gainers were Satyam Computer up 6.70pc, ITC up 5.09pc, Housing Development Finance Corporation gained 4.50pc, Hindalco Industries gained 4.10pc at Rs 208.10 and Maruti Suzuki rose 3.80 pc.

While top Sensex losers were Bajaj Auto down 3.26 pc, Reliance Energy declined 3.01 pc, Bharti Airtel tumbled 2.44 pc, HDFC Bank was down 1.54 pc and Hindustan Unilever declined 1.51 pc.

The BSE Bankex fell 1.55 pc to 8,916.03. It underperformed the Sensex. Bank of India declined 7.64pc, Bank of Baroda tumbled 6.50pc and Oriental Bank of Commerce slipped 6.38pc, Union Bank of India was down 6.63pc.

However, Punjab National Bank today recovered the previous loss to end up by 1.30 pc to Rs 523.30.

UNI