Market range bound

The market surged at the onset of the trading session,tracking firm Asian markets, on prospects of political stability in Uttar Pradesh and strong Q4 March 2007 results.But a sharp fall in Dr Reddy’s Laboratories caused by an adverse ruling by a US court and slide in index heavyweight Infosys Technologies and Bajaj Auto pulled the market off the higher level in morning trade.And now the market is moving in a narrow range.

At 13.00 pm the sensex is trading at 13987 up by 191 points while Nifty is up by 65 points at 4142.55.

Top gainers on the Sensex are SBI up 4.55%, HLL at Rs 190 up 3.5% and Cipla up 2.8%. Top gainers on the Nifty are Reliance Petro up 6.49% and PNB up 4.41%.Top losers on the Sensex are Dr Reddys Labs down 3.9%, Hero Honda down 1.8% and Bajaj Auto down 1.7%.

Index heavyweight Reliance was trading at Rs 1,609.10 up 1.19% from its previous close of Rs 1,590.25.Tech major Infosys was trading at Rs 1,999.00 down 0.06% from its previous close of Rs 2,000.15.Cigarette major ITC was trading at Rs 163.45 up 0.86% from its previous close of Rs 162.05.

State Bank of India (SBI) gained almost 5% to Rs 1203 after it reported a 75% growth in net profit to Rs 1493.19 crore in Q4 March 2007, from Rs 853.29 crore in Q4 March 2006. The net interest income rose 22% to Rs 4320 crore. SBI's net profit was up 3% to Rs 4541.31 crore in the year ending March 2007.

Reliance Petroleum (RPL) amassed almost 5% to Rs 90.65. The stock rose on high early volume of 33.7 lakh shares on BSE. RPL had risen 7.7% on Friday, 11 May 2007, on heavy volume of 1.17 crore on BSE. Late last month, RPL had said it had made remarkable progress on all implementation fronts for its global sized, complex refinery coming up in a Special Economic Zone at Jamnagar in Gujarat with the overall project completion nearing 50%, in just 15 months since commencement of the project.