Sensex makes a come-back as Sept contract expires

Mumbai, Sept 24 (PTI) Fag-end buying Thursday helped the
Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex recover its early
losses and end the day nearly 62 points
up as speculators
rushed to cover their pending positions.

The 30-share Sensex, which had tumbled 224.58 points
during the day, bounced back in the last 30-minutes of trade
to close higher by 61.93 points at 16,781.43 on the back of a
sharp recovery in heavy-weight stocks like Reliance
Industries, Housing Development Finance Corp and ICICI Bank.

Similarly, the wide-based National Stock Exchange's Nifty
recovered by 16.60 points to end at 4,986.55. It briefly
recovered the crucial 5,000 points level on late buying.

The late buying picked up as speculators indulged in
covering their pending positions on the last day of September
month contract expiry in the derivatives segment.

Expectations of a robust corporate quarterly earnings
further boosted the uptrend.

Also, a mixed Asian trend as Jpan's Nikkei index rose by
1.67
per cent, China's Shanghai by 0.38 per cent, while Hong
Kong's Hang Seng index fell by 2.52 per cent and Singapore
Straight Times by 0.69 per cent partly influenced the trading
sentiment.

Volatility remained high during the day as traders rolled
over derivatives contracts from September 2009 series to
October 2009 series ahead of the expiry of September contract
today.

Meanwhile, inflation further rose to 0.37 per cent for
the week ended September 12 from 0.12 per cent in the previous
week due to increasing prices of essential food items also
weighed on the share values.

The Banking index gained the most by 1.48 per cent to
9,543.42 as HDFC Bank surged by 3.39 per cent to Rs 1,622.10
and HDFC by 3.39 per cent to Rs 2,743.15 on optimisms the
early recovery in the global economy would boost demand for
interest-linked funds.

The Health care index was second best performer rising by
0.91 per cent to 4,091.89 and FMCG index by 0.73 per cent to
2,562.25. Realty index fell by 0.67 per cent to 4,444.26 and
Public sector undertaking index by 0.44 per cent to 8,812.69.

However, Information Technology sector index fell by 1.59
per cent to 4,490.56, metal index by 1.13 per cent to
14,271.74, consumer durable index by 0.77 per cent to 3,441.06
and auto index by 0.67 per cent to 6,553.53. PTI RS
SDE