Sensex steers past 15400

After registering smart gains in yesterday's session, the market rallied sharply and gained 454 points during intra-day trades. Firm Asian markets made the undertone bullish, with the Sensex crossing the 15300-mark in early trades and maintaining the upward bias thereafter. While the mood remained upbeat on strong buying in power, capital goods and consumer durables stocks, the rally gathered more steam in afternoon and the Sensex touched the day's high of 15581. The Sensex finally ended the session 340 points up at 15467 and Nifty rose 104 points to close at 4655.

The breadth of the market was surprisingly negative. Of the 2,831 stocks traded on the BSE 1,542 stocks declined, 1,229 stocks advanced and 60 stocks ended unchanged. Among sectoral indices, BSE Power flared up by 3.62%, BSE CG rose 3.46%, BSE CD moved up 2.74% and BSE Bankex was up 2.49%, while other indices ended with moderate gains. BSE Realty was the only index to close in negative territory with 1.14% fall.

Barring a few, most of the Sensex stocks ended higher. Tata Power flared up 6.43% at Rs1,213.65, Reliance Infrastructure bounced back sharply and shot up by 5.99% at Rs1,218.10, HDFC Bank zoomed 5.56% at Rs1,494.20, Ranbaxy Laboratories moved up by 5.44% at Rs298.55, ACC scaled up 5.40% at Rs897.35, Reliance Communications surged 5.30% at Rs349.85, Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd jumped 4.62% at Rs2,352.80 and Larsen & Toubro gained 3.80% at Rs1,633.65.

Power stocks were in demand and attracted strong buying support. Lanco Infrastructure spurted by 14.52% at Rs443.60, Siemens shot up by 5.36% at Rs511.15, ABB flared up 4.61% at Rs769.80 and Neyveli jumped by 3.65% at Rs135. Consumer durable stocks too logged significant gains. Videocon Industries soared 9.99% at Rs196.60, Titan Industries added 2.65% at Rs1,245.45 and Blue Star climbed 0.20% at Rs307.35.

Over 2.61 crore shares of Unitech changed hands on the BSE followed by Reliance Natural Resources (1.69 crore shares), Suzlon Energy (1.68 crore shares), Ispat Industries (1.50 crore shares) and JP Hydropower (1.46 crore shares).

In value terms, Tech Mahindra clocked a turnover of Rs307 crore followed by Unitech (Rs237 crore), Suzlon Energy (Rs213 crore), Reliance Industries (Rs207 crore) and Aban Offshore (Rs203 crore).