Heavyweights lift Sensex above 14000

The Sensex continued to rally upwards for the second consecutive session and gained 426 points to close at 14057. Taking the positive cues from the global markets, the Sensex started the trading session on a firm note at 13729 and maintained a steady upward bias throughout the session. A strong bout of buying in heavyweight, banking, oil, capital goods and technology stocks triggered a rally that saw the index surge past the 14000 mark to touch an intra-day high of 14071. The Nifty notched up gains of 110 points to close at 4052.

The breadth of the market was positive. Of the 2,722 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,631 stocks advanced, 1,050 stocks declined and 41 stocks ended unchanged. All the sectoral indices closed with significant gains. The BSE Bankex was the major gainer and soared 6.79% followed by the BSE Oil & Gas index (up 2.77%), the BSE PSU index (up 2.75%), the BSE Teck index (up 2.41%) and the BSE CG index (up 2.24%).

From the 30 Sensex stocks 20 ended in the green. Attracting strong buying support ICICI Bank surged 8.49% at Rs970, HDFC Bank soared 6.39% at Rs1,063, SBI jumped 6.39% at Rs1,223, BHEL advanced 4.77% at Rs2,257, Bharti added 4.34% at Rs665, HDFC zoomed 4.20% at Rs1,586, TCS gained 3.77% at Rs1,325, Reliance vaulted 3.47% at Rs1,340, Cipla was up 3.35% at Rs255 and Satyam Computers closed stronger by 3.23% at Rs496. Other front-line stocks also moved up by 1-2% each.

Banking stocks witnessed sustained buying support. After ICICI Bank, Federal Bank surged 7.43% at Rs255, Bank of India soared 7.10% at Rs207, Oriental Bank added 6.49% at Rs226, Bank of Baroda advanced 6.35% at Rs240 and Punjab National Bank gained 6.14% at Rs516. Canara Bank, UTI Bank and Union Bank were up 3-5% each.

Over 59.14 lakh SAIL shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Reliance Communication (27 lakh shares), Cairn India (24 lakh shares) and IDBI (23 lakh shares).

Reliance Industries was the most actively traded counter on the BSE and registered a turnover of Rs154 crore followed by Reliance Communication (Rs117 crore), SBI (Rs70 crore), TCS (Rs61 crore) and Infosys (Rs60 crore).