Unabated rally

The market displayed tremendous strength on firming global cues. The Sensex went into a major recovery mode after yesterday's fall and surged by over 1,150 points during the intra-day trades. The rally in Asian markets cheered investors, and the Sensex had a gap-up opening at 17,504, up 282 points. Realty, metal and banking stocks led the rally and the respective indices posted over 8-10% gains on Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). Firm close in major Asian indices and surge in European markets also helped the sentiment remain bullish, with Sensex crossing the 18,000 mark by the afternoon and maintaining upwards bias thereafter. Sustained buying in frontline stocks saw the Sensex surge past the 18,400 mark to touch the day's high of 18,406 towards close. The Sensex ended the session by gaining 1,140 points or 6.62% at 18,362, while the Nifty added 350 points or 6.95% at 5,383.

The breadth of the market was positive. Of the 2,758 stocks traded on the BSE 1,558 stocks advanced, 1,164 stocks declined and 36 stocks ended unchanged. Among the sectoral indices the BSE Realty Index flared up by 10.41%, the BSE Metal Index rose 9.73% and the BSE Bankex Index moved up by 7.53%. The other indices also ended with gains over 4-6% each.

All the Sensex stocks ended at higher levels. Hindalco flared up 14.01% at Rs173, Reliance energy shot up by 11.81% at Rs2,030, ICICI Bank zoomed 11.16% at Rs1,259, L&T moved up by 9.95% at Rs3,890, NTPC scaled up 9.11% at Rs222, Bajaj Auto surged by 9.02% at Rs2,300, M&M jumped by 7.76% at Rs674 and Tata Motors gained 7.70% at Rs712.

Over 1.42 crore RNRL shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Ispat Industries (1.41 crore shares), IFCI (1.08 crore shares), GMR Infrastructure (99.65 lakh shares) and Reliance Petroleum (99.05 lakh shares).

Valuewise, Reliance Capital clocked a turnover of Rs255 crore followed by Reliance Energy (Rs207 crore), RNRL (Rs199 crore), GMR Infrastructure (Rs179 crore) and Reliance Industries (Rs158 crore).