Buoyancy lifts Sensex above 12900

The market continued its upward bias for the third consecutive session as the Sensex notched up gains of 240 points during the day. The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 30 points at 12736 and remained range-bound after a few initial hiccups till early afternoon trades. The strengthening of the rupee against the dollar triggered a negative sentiment for the second consecutive day in the information technology and pharma stocks, dragging the Sensex to an intra-day low of 12664. The market bounced back smartly on buying in banking stocks on the finance minister's announcement that the current liquidity crunch will ease in the next few days. The buoyancy in heavyweight, banking and fast moving consumer goods stocks saw the index surge to an intra-day high of 12965. The Sensex finally ended the session with gains of 240 points at 12946, while the Nifty added 67 points closed at 3765.

However, the breadth of the market was negative. Of the 2,622 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,376 stocks declined, 1,153 stocks advanced and 93 stocks ended unchanged. Among the sectoral indices the BSE Bankex jumped 4.04% at 6545 followed by the BSE FMCG Index (up 2.26% at 1666), the BSE Teck Index (up 1.77% at 3567) and the BSE PSU Index (up 1.74% at 5733).

Most of the heavyweights closed at higher levels. ICICI Bank notched up gains of 5.64% at Rs870, HLL soared 3.67% at Rs191, Bharti Airtel surged 3.15% at Rs762, Reliance Energy advanced 3.14% at Rs491, SBI added 3.10% at Rs982, BHEL gained 2.90% at Rs2,103, ITC advanced 2.80% at Rs145 and ONGC was up 2.80% at Rs813. Among the laggards Gujarat Ambuja dropped 4.01% at Rs106, HDFC slipped 1.44% at Rs1,543 and Ranbaxy shed 1.23% at Rs332. Grasim, Dr Reddy's and Bajaj Auto closed marginally lower.

Banking stocks were in the limelight and closed with strong gains. Bank of Baroda vaulted 6.71% at Rs213, Centurion Bank Of Punjab soared 6.25% at Rs37, Oriental Bank surged 4.11% at Rs177 and UTI Bank advanced by 3.93% at Rs481. Punjab National Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, Union Bank, Canara Bank and Bank of India gained over 3% each. Among the fast moving consumer goods stocks Proctor & Gamble, Dabur India, Godrej Consumer, Colgate gained 1-3% each.

Reliance Industries clocked a turnover of Rs84 crore on the BSE followed by Reliance Communications (Rs78 crore), ICICI Bank (Rs63 crore), SBI (Rs54 crore) and Infosys (Rs53 crore).