Sensex gains on positive global cues

The market attracted considerable buying interest for the fifth straight session on firm global cues and gained nearly 200 points in early trades. The Sensex resumed with a huge positive gap of 176 points at 15,169. The market was range-bound with a positive bias, but the index lost some ground in the late morning trades to touch the day's low of 15,054, up 61 points from yesterday's close. The market however regained its lost momentum towards the final hour of the session on hectic upsurge in banking, heavyweight and auto stocks but, profit booking at close led the Sensex shed its gains and end the session at 15,122, up 129 points. The Nifty gained 53 points to close at 4,412.

The breadth of the market was positive. Of the 2,699 stocks traded on the BSE 1,567 stocks advanced, 1,058 stocks declined and 74 stocks ended unchanged. Among the sectoral indices the BSE Auto notched up gains of 1.38% at 4,777 followed by the BSE Bankex index (up 1.29% at 7,752) while the BSE IT index and the BSE Teck index up 1.06% respectively.

Most of the index heavyweights received considerable buying interest. Mahindra & Mahindra soared 2.95% at Rs675, Reliance Communication rose 2.77% at Rs534 HDFC Bank was up 2.20% at Rs1,182. Among the other major gainers Bajaj Auto shot up by 1.96% at Rs2,365, ACC jumped 1.92% at Rs1,061, ICICI Bank added 1.76% at Rs872, Ranbaxy gained 1.57% at Rs378, HDFC moved up by 1.37% at Rs1,986 and Infosys was up 1.33% at Rs1,858. However, Cipla slipped 2.68% at Rs165 and Reliance Energy fell 1.97% at Rs767 while Tata Steel, L&T, SBI, Bharti Airtel, Ambuja Cement and Maruti Udyog inched marginally lower.

Auto and auto ancillary stocks notched up significant gains during the day. AmteK Auto surged 6.58% at Rs370, Escorts scaled up 5.50% at Rs90, Exide Industries rose 4.51% at Rs61, TVS Motors jumped 2.95% at Rs61, Apollo Tyre added 2.23% at Rs39, Bajaj Auto gained 1.96% at Rs2,365 and Hero Honda was up 1.37% at Rs646.

Over 4.36 crore Bella Steel shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Ispat Industries (1.60 crore shares), Tata Teleservices (1.55 crore shares), Nagarjuna Fertilisers (1.29 crore shares) and JP Hydro (1.07 crore shares).

Value wise, Axis Bank registered a turnover of Rs504 crore on the BSE followed by Puruvankara (Rs264 crore), Housing Development & Infrastructure (Rs257 crore), GMR Infrastructure (Rs192 crore) and Reliance Industries (Rs171 crore).