Sensex ends buoyant above 12600

The market sentiment remained upbeat for the entire session. Firm Asian indices saw the Sensex open with a positive gap of 55 points at 12485. However the market witnessed a bout of selling and the Sensex touched the day's low of 12427 in early trades. Steady to firm buying in communication, energy and technology stocks once again lifted the Sensex past the 12600 mark to an intra-day high of 12655. The Sensex ended the trading session at 12645, up 215 points. The Nifty gained 70 points and closed at 3679.

The breadth of the market was positive. Of the 2,606 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,418 stocks advanced, 1,111 stocks declined and 77 stocks ended unchanged. Among the sectoral indices the BSE PSU Index notched up gains of 2.62% at 5586 followed by the BSE Teck Index (up 2.23% at 3508), the BSE CG Index (up 2.09% at 8509) and the BSE CD Index (up 2% at 4546).

Barring a few counters, most of the heavyweights ended at higher levels. In the technology space i-flex Solutions soared 6% at Rs1,983, Reliance Communications rose 5.36% at Rs397 and Mphasis was up 1.07% at Rs292. Among the Sensex gainers BHEL surged 6.31% at Rs2,079, ONGC jumped 4.05% at Rs793, Gujarat Ambuja Cements added 3.52% at Rs107, Tata Motors gained 2.86% at Rs771, NTPC advanced 2.71% at Rs144 and HDFC Bank was up 2.48% at Rs927. ACC, Wipro, Bharti Airtel and HDFC gained over 2% each. However, ITC at Rs142, Hero Honda at Rs640, Hindalco at Rs129, Dr Reddy's at Rs678 and Tata Steel at Rs430 inched marginally lower.

PSU stocks notched up significant gains during the day. Gail India surged 4.68% at Rs272, Bank of India added 4.34% at Rs143, Balmar Lawrie rose 4.28% at Rs430, MTNL jumped 3.90% at Rs148, Bharat Electricals advanced 3.45% at Rs1,460, HMT gained 2.68% at Rs73 and RCF was up 2.46% at Rs35.

Over 44.97 lakh Idea Cellular shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Reliance Communications (25.88 lakh shares), ITC (24.87 lakh shares), Orchid Chemicals (10.83 lakh shares) and Parsvanath Developers (10.53 lakh shares).

Value-wise Reliance Communications registered a turnover of Rs100 crore on the BSE followed by Reliance Industries (Rs53 crore), Idea Cellular (Rs42 crore), SBI (Rs40 crore) and Infosys (Rs35 crore)