Post Market Commentary

The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 45 points at 16,891, and soon touched a new all-time intra-day high of 16,928 - just 72 points shy of the 17,000-mark.

Profit-taking at higher levels saw the index pare gains and drop into red to a low of 16,677 - down 251 points from the day's high. However, the index rebounded into the positive zone on the back of fresh buying at lower levels.

The Sensex finally ended with a gain of 54 points at a record 16,900.

The BSE Oil & Gas index gained 1.3% at 9778. The Realty index, however, dropped 3% to 9085.

The market breadth was negative - out of 2,816 stocks traded, 1,654 declined, 1,111 advanced and 51 were unchanged today.

INDEX MOVERS...

HDFC Bank soared nearly 4% to Rs 1,398. Hindalco surged 3% to Rs 168.

Bharti Airtel rallied over 2% to Rs 965. Reliance and Ranbaxy moved up 1.8% each to Rs 2,400 and Rs 424, respectively.


Hindustan Unilever advanced 1.5% to Rs 227. Cipla and Maruti were up over 1% each to Rs 169 and Rs 991, respectively.

...AND THE SHAKERS

Mahindra & Mahindra plunged 2.6% to Rs 763. Bajaj Auto slipped over 2% to Rs 2,519.

SBI and Wipro dropped 1.6% each to Rs 1,804 and Rs 436, respectively.

Larsen & Toubro is down over 1% to Rs 2,865.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

IFCI topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 449 crore followed by Reliance Natural Resources (Rs 441.60 crore), J P Hydro-power (Rs 275.30 crore), Reliance Petro (Rs 266.60 crore) and Reliance Energy (Rs 238.50 crore).

Reliance Natural Resources led the volume chart with trades of around 4.72 crore shares followed by IFCI (4.42 crore), Ispat Industries (4.33 crore), J P Hydro-power (3.70 crore) and Tata Tele (2.76 crore).