Bulls take charge: Sensex closes 169 pts up

Market made a good start and surged to higher levels as the day proceeded. The bulls once again took charge of the reins; a day after bloodshed was witnessed on Dalal Street. Index pivotals proved their might as stocks like HLL, Bhel, Infosys, ONGC and Reliance held strong on Tuesday, with major gains.

Short-covering by speculators along with emergence of buying by funds at lower levels, helped the Sensex to recover part of yesterday's losses. Firm Asian market cues and stronger rupee boosted market sentiment. In the latter part of the day Midcap and Smallcap also traded higher.

Sensex closed for the day up 1.36 per cent or 169.21 points at 12,624.58. Nifty closed at 3,690.65; up 1.57 per cent. BSE Midcap index closed at 5,236 up 27 points or 0.52 per cent while the BSE Smallcap index ended at 6,313; up 19.58 points or 0.31 per cent.

All BSE sectoral indices closed in green. Oil and gas stocks closed higher at 1.86 per cent. ONGC and Reliance were the major gainers on the Sensex throughout the day.

Reliance Industries gained momentum on the back of huge volumes. The scrip recorded volumes of over 14, 00,000 shares on the NSE. Reliance shut shop at Rs 1,341 up 2.11 per cent and ONGC rose 1.63 per cent at Rs 841. Also, GAIL touched an intraday high of Rs 277 and an intraday low of Rs 266, and recorded volumes of 3,02,379 shares in the day. The scrip ended at Rs 279 up 4.85 per cent on the NSE.

IT stocks also drove markets higher, with Wipro up 4.58 per cent closing at Rs 534; Satyam up 2.78 per cent at Rs 458 and Infosys up 2.22 per cent at Rs 1,963.

Wipro Ltd, India's third-largest software services exporter announced that it had invested Rs 37.5 crore to expand its facility in the western city of Pune.

Satyam Computer Services Ltd said that the company earned the top spot in two categories in the 2007 Investor Relations Global Rankings by MZ Consult.

OBC which rose 5.58 per cent at Rs 177; Jet Airways up 4.84 per cent at Rs 632 and Bhel up 4.68 per cent at Rs 2,255 were among the top gainers on the Nifty. The top losers were Cipla, Bajaj Auto and HDFC.

PSU power equipment major Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (Bhel) announced that its net profit rose 42 per cent in FY 2007 at Rs 2385 crore from Rs 1679 crore in FY 2006, as per provisional figures. The provisional turnover rose 28.7 per cent in FY-2007 to Rs 18702 crore from Rs 14525 crore than a year ago. Bhel was the top-gainer on BSE.

The BSE cash turnover was Rs 2881 crore and the NSE cash turnover was at Rs 6729 crore. The total market wide turnover was at Rs 32961 crore.