Sensex rebounds

After crashing by 652 points in the last five sessions, the market witnessed a strong relief rally on across-the-board buying through the day. The strong optimism in key indices triggered a steep rally and the FMCG index managed to register gains of 3.25%. The Sensex opened on a weak note with a negative gap of 31 points at 13331, but quickly recovered and remained upbeat through the session on sustained buying support. The rally gathered steam towards the close and the Sensex touched an intra-day high of 13668 before ending the session at 13631, up 269 points. The Nifty also bounced back sharply and advanced 92 points to close at 3942.

The breadth of the market was positive. Of the 2,702 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,759 stocks advanced, 886 stocks declined and 51 stocks ended unchanged. All the sectoral indices closed with significant gains. The BSE FMCG index was the major gainer and soared 3.25% followed by the BSE CD index (up 2.67%), the BSE IT index (up 2.05%), the BSE PSU index (up 2.02%) and the BSE Teck index (up 2.50%).

Among the 30 Sensex stocks 28 ended in the green. Attracting strong buying support Wipro surged 5.18% at Rs621, Reliance Communication soared 4.83% at Rs427, HLL jumped 4.53% at Rs218, Bharti advanced 3.91% at Rs637, TCS added 3.49% at Rs1,277, Satyam Computers zoomed 3.43% at Rs480, ITC gained 3.40% at Rs169, NTPC vaulted 3.39% at Rs137, ACC was up 2.95% at Rs1,050 and Maruti Udyog closed stronger by 2.86% at Rs906. Other front-line stocks also moved up by 1-2% each.

FMCG stocks witnessed sustained buying support. Bata India surged 6.22% at Rs229, ITC jumped 3.40% at Rs169, Proctor & Gamble added 3.27% at Rs900, Nestle advanced 3.18% at Rs1,244 and Marico gained 2.43% at Rs545. United Spirits, Dabur India and GlaxoSmithKline were up 1-2% each.

Over 12.92 crore IFCI shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Zee News (75 lakh shares), Pentium Infratech (62 lakh shares), Harig Cranks (55 lakh shares) and Shree Ashtavinayak (52 lakh shares).

Infosys was the most actively traded counter on the BSE and registered a turnover of Rs225 crore followed by Reliance Communication (Rs141 crore), RIL (Rs92 crore), Satyam (Rs79 crore) and SBI (Rs68 crore).