Sensex recovers on firm global cues, short coverings

The market displayed a positive trend on firming global cues. The Sensex went into a major recovery mode and surged by 201 points during the intra-day trades. Recovery in major Asian indices turned the sentiment bullish, with the Sensex crossing the 14100 mark in early trades and maintaining the upward bias thereafter. The mood remained upbeat on strong buying in metal, capital goods, public sector and technology stocks. The market rallied sharply towards the close and the Sensex surged past the 14200 mark to touch the day's high of 14219. The Sensex ended the session by gaining 201 points at 14204, while the Nifty added 57 points at 4170.

The breadth of the market was extremely positive, with gainers outnumbering losers in the ratio of 2.18:1. Of the 2,561 stocks traded on the BSE 1,692 stocks advanced, 781 stocks declined and 88 stocks ended unchanged. Among the sectoral indices the BSE Metal Index flared up by 2.84%, the BSE CG Index rose 2.31%, the BSE PSU Index moved up by 1.71% and the BSE Teck Index was up 1.60%. The other indices also ended with gains.

Barring Hero Honda, ICICI Bank, Tata Motors and ITC all the other Sensex stocks ended at higher levels. HDFC flared up 4.24% at Rs1,825, ACC shot up by 3.36% at Rs825, Tata Steel zoomed 3.18% at Rs614, Grasim moved up by 2.96% at Rs2,432, BHEL scaled up 2.88% at Rs1,349, L&T surged by 2.78% at Rs1,933, Bharti Airtel jumped by 2.63% at Rs818 and Hindalco gained 2.34% at Rs164.

Metal stocks were in demand and attracted strong buying support. JSW Steel spurted by 5.07% at Rs582, Maharashtra Seemless shot up by 4.40% at Rs607, SAIL flared up 4.39% at Rs133 and Sesa Goa jumped by 4.39% at Rs1,762. Jindal Saw, Jindal Steel, Jindal Stainless and Sterlite gained around 1-2% each.

Over 71.02 lakh GV Films shares changed hands on the BSE followed by IFCI (63.09 lakh shares), Reliance Natural Resources (6.06 lakh shares), Time Technologies (50.92 lakh shares) and MIC Electronics (38.15 lakh shares).

Value-wise Time Technologies clocked a turnover of Rs248 crore followed by ICRA (Rs186 crore), Unitech (Rs138 crore), MIC Electronics (Rs137 crore) and Indiabulls Real Estate (Rs102 crore).