Sensex rallies on metal and auto stocks

The market witnessed a sharp pull-back after witnessing a slump for the last couple of sessions. The rally was mainly triggered by the buoyancy in heavyweights, metal and auto stocks. Realty stocks on the bourses also rallied sharply today, as the market value of DLF, India's biggest real estate firm, crossed rupees one-trillion mark on hopes that the Reserve Bank of India may not raise interest rates at a credit review later this month. Firm close in other Asian indices also helped the market to rally. The Sensex resumed with a positive gap of 53 points at 14964 and surged on sustained buying in front-line stocks. The index moved within a range thereafter. However, hectic buying towards the close helped the Sensex to touch the day's high of 15112 and end the session at 15092, up 182 points. The Nifty closed by adding 59 points at 4446.

Among the sectoral indices the Metal index led the upsurge with gains of 3.34% at 11475 followed by the BSE Realty index (up 3.33% at 7880), the BSE Auto index (up 1.75% at 5007) and the BSE Bankex (up 1.57% at 8216). The market breadth was extremely positive. Of the 2,713 stocks traded on the BSE 1,793 stocks advanced, 858 stocks declined and 62 stocks ended unchanged.

Out of the 30 Sensex stocks, 25 managed to end in the green while five stocks ended with losses. Hindalco was the leading gainer and soared 7.03% at Rs166. Reliance Energy jumped 6.82% at Rs669, HDFC Bank shot up by 4.42% at Rs1,201, BHEL advanced 4.12% at Rs1,641, Reliance Communication moved up by 4.04% at Rs562, Bajaj Auto added 3.11% at Rs2,195 and M&M gained 2.86% at Rs803. Among the laggards Ambuja Cement dropped 1.17% at Rs126, ONGC shed 0.95% at Rs893, Infosys declined by 0.41% at Rs1,922, Satyam fell 0.25% at Rs480 and L&T slipped marginally at Rs2,377.

Over 2.49 crore Reliance Natural Resources shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Nagarjuna Fertilizers (1 crore shares), IFCI (97.49 lakh shares), IKF Technologies (86.40 lakh shares) and Tata Teleservices (70.30 lakh shares).

GMR Infrastructure registered a turnover of Rs454 crore on the BSE followed by DLF (Rs228 crore), Time Technologies (Rs148 crore), Reliance Energy (Rs133 crore) and Unitech (Rs118 crore).