According to dealers, although FIIs refrained form selling during the day, a number of mutual funds were major sellers during the morning and this was followed by selling by the operators. Lower badla rates last Saturday helped the market to open with an impressive gap. After opening with a gap of around 75 points against its Friday closing of 4783.08, the Sensex touched a high of 4912.36, but profit-booking soon followed. The index dipped to the day's low of 4765.57 but closed higher at 4816.01.

According to Rajiv Sampat at Parag Parikh Financial Advisory Services, ``It was a well-deserved correction in the IT counters. With almost all the pivotal scrips either hitting the lower circuit or closing near to that, only steel and commodity stocks witnessed some movement during the day.''

The main contributors to the Sensex were ITC, Infosys, SBI, Telco, MTNL and HLL. ITC was up by more than four per cent. Among the bank stocks, SBI led the rally, and other bank stocks also showed impressive gains.

The steel sector was also in limelight. Tisco moved up by over 6 per cent. Sail, and other small steel stocks also recorded handsome gains. In the cement sector, huge buying was witnessed during the last half-an-hour of the day. There was buying of around four lakh shares in the L&T counter. ACC, and Gujarat Ambuja also felt the impact.

As for software stocks, the day was simply bearish. Satyam Computers led the fall. It hit the lower circuit. Pentafour Software, and Silverline have also hit the lower band. Overall, around 80 per cent of the software stock showed a substantial fall. Stocks like Ditigal, Himachal Futuristic, HCL, and Global Tele feature in this lists.

Meanwhile, in the non-specified list, stocks like Jaiprakash Industries, IOC, Datar Switchgears, American Remedies, Bits, Aftek Infosys, Citicorp, Hikal Chemicals, Laffans Petro, Today's Writing, Roofit Industries,, HMT, and Carbon Everflow showed impressive gains.

For Tuesday, market players are not expecting any major movement, but opine that the markets should remain weak and likely to move up again on Wednesday. According to Ambareesh Baliga at Kotak Securities, ``For Tuesday, we expect the market to remain weaker. After Monday's correction in the IT stocks, they look attractive as I perceive further downside in these counters is limited from the current levels.''

Back to finance firms

Finance companies continued to hog the limelight with a large number of NBFC scrips moving up the ladder smartly. The shift in focus to finance companies was seen even in B2 stocks. Interestingly, finance companies were among the top five gainers in the B2 group on the BSE. LKP Merchant Financing, Gujarat Lease and First Leasing were among the top gainers notching an increase of over 24 per cent. Scrips of finance companies have been on the rise over the last one week led by leaders like Kotak Mahindra and Reliance Capital. In some cases the gains have been as high as 500 per cent over the last two weeks.