Sensex well over 17k, Nifty above 5100

Today's major news

Consolidated Construction Consortium bags Rs405-crore order; the stock ends 1.82% higher.

Reliance Industries topples Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) as the largest gas producer in India; the stock rises 3.30%.

Maruti Suzuki India’s sales for November 2009 up by 66.6% yoy; the stock jumps 1.69%.

Sterlite Technologies bags Rs600-crore order; the stock shots up 5.36%.

Mahindra & Mahindra’s total sales jump by 81% yoy in November 2009; the stock surges 4.84%.

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Post-market summary

Global signals

European stocks that closed lower in the previous sessions, bounced back today with close to 1.6% gains, as fear of Dubai debt default fades.

The major Asian indices opened marginally positive and got stronger as the day passed and closed with decent gains in the range of 0.91-2.43%. SGX Nifty ends 91 points higher.

As global markets rejoiced, the US stock futures opened strong with close to 0.80% gains in early trades. The investors will be waiting for a slew of economic data, including US ISM figures for November and pending home sales numbers.

Indian indices

The Sensex ended the day with heavy gains of over 200 points for the second day on the trot. The index opened gap-up with gains of 21 points and it never saw that level in the day and made a high of 17218. Stronger cues from Asian and western markets helped the Sensex close 272 points higher at 17198. Nifty closed at 5122, 1.84% higher.

Sensex sentiment

The market breadth got stronger as the day progressed and was very positive for the day. Out of 2,830 stocks traded on the BSE, 2,031 stocks advanced, whereas 725 stocks declined. Seventy-four stocks closed unchanged.

Sectoral & stock screening

Just like yesterday, market bulls helped all the 13 sector indices on the BSE to close in green today. BSE Realty topped the sector indices chart surging by 6.17%. Five of the indices--BSE Auto, BSE Bankex, BSE HC, BSE OIL & GAS and BSE PSU--gained 2-3%. The remaining seven indices gained less than 2% for the day.

On stocks’ front, Unitech surged the most by 11.78% followed by Jet Air India that rose by 9.28%. Jaiprakash Hydro Power, Yes Bank and Tata Motors were up by over 6% each. Among losers, Jain Irrigation slid the most by 2.57% followed by Hindustan Unilever that fell by 1.95%.

Viewing volumes

On stock turnover front, over 3.30 crore shares of Unitech changed hands on BSE followed by Suzlon Energy (1.89 crore shares), IFCI (0.57 crore shares), Ispat Industries (0.54 crore shares) and Reliance Natural Resources (0.53 crore shares).