Our Markets Bureau

Mumbai, June 11: The shifting of buying interest to defensive stocks belonging to FMCG and pharma sectors and consistent offloading of new economy stocks by domestic mutual funds saw the Sensex closing the day
in the positive territory. It gained 13 points while S&P CNX Nifty was up by 3 points.

The unwinding in the technology stocks was so huge that sectoral BSE IT index lost 1.54 per cent to close
at 1737.56 — down 26.75 points.

The Sensex opened slightly better at 3507.34 and moved to an intra-day high at 3525.04. It then slipped to 3482.80, but it succeeded in closing at 3509.32 — a gain of 13.48 points.

Nifty followed suit and gained by 3 points to close at 1113.

Leading domestic mutual funds were actively selling in the frontline new economy stocks, which it has gathered during the bull phase at a considerable high price, said the market sources.

Pharma stocks were in demand mainly because this sector proved to be one of the defensive sector in wake prevailing uncertain scenario. Parke-Davis, Syngenta, E Merck, Cipla and Ranbaxy were the major gainers.

Cements and FMCG majors like Gujarat Ambuja, ACC, L&T and ITC and HLL respectively provided much needed support to the Sensex, when it was struggling to come out of red after the mid-session, said the dealers.

Parke-Davis, Videocon International, Syngenta and Bank of India were locked in the upper circuit of 8 per cent and above while HPCL and Cummins India gained more than 7 per cent to close at Rs 171.45 and Rs 51.10 respectively.

Century Textiles was in demand after the news of restructuring of BK Birla group. The stock gained 5.6 per cent to close at Rs 36.80.

Among the top losers, Tata Chemicals was the worst hit and the stock was battered down by more than 12 per cent to close at Rs 41.75.

Other top losers included leading new economy stocks like Hinduja Finance (down 4.52 per cent), Aptech (down 4.29 per cent) and HCL Tech, PSI Data Systems and Infosys all down in excess of 3.5 per cent.