Sensex gains 148 points

Driven by the sharp gains in heavyweight, auto, capital goods, FMCG and banking stocks the market ended on a buoyant note for the third consecutive session. After registering gains of 80 points yesterday, the Sensex resumed with a positive gap of 34 points at 13730. Maintaining its upward bias, extensive buying in several sectoral stocks saw the index edge past the 13850 mark and touch an all-time high of 13858, up 162 points for the day. The Sensex closed the session with gains of 148 points at 13845. The Nifty touched an all-time high of 4001 and closed the session at 3998, up 43 points.

The breadth of the market was positive. Of the 2,650 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,516 stocks advanced, 1,063 stocks declined and 71 stocks ended unchanged. Among the sectoral indices, the BSE Auto index gained 2.84%. The BSE CG index added 1.84%, the BSE FMCG index advanced 1.61% and the BSE Bankex was up 1.53%. The remaining indices were up around 1% each.

Among the Sensex stocks Tata Motors vaulted 4.14% at Rs843, Bajaj Auto soared 3.91% at Rs2,748, Hero Honda surged 3.91% at Rs772, SBI advanced 3.52% at Rs1,360, Reliance Communication gained 3.03% at Rs442, Ranbaxy spurted 2.94% at Rs383, Dr Reddy's soared 2.62% at Rs770 and Reliance Energy was up 2.33% at Rs540.

Among the auto and auto ancillary stocks Balkrishna Industries surged 4.74% at Rs581, Punjab Tractors soared 4.58% at Rs250, Escorts advanced 3.62% at Rs122 and Amtek Auto added 3.58% at Rs367. Maruti Udyog, Cummins India and Mahindra & Mahindra gained above 2% each. However, Apollo Tyres, Asahi India and Exide Industries closed in negative territory.

BPL at Rs71.45, Godfrey at Rs1,449.05, Lakshmi Machine Works at Rs34,051.65, Thomas Cook at Rs546 and Flex Industries at Rs82.65 hit the upper circuit breaker. On the other hand Torrent Gujarat Biotech at Rs10.12 and Tips Industries at Rs27.80 hit the lower circuit on the BSE.

Over 41.96 lakh Parsvnath Developers shares were traded on the BSE followed by Dena Bank (25.75 lakh shares), Reliance Communication (16.99 lakh shares), Lanco Infratech (15.99 lakh shares) and Alstom Project (15.33 lakh shares).