Sensex clocks new high, above 16,300

The benchmark index Sensex rose to its record high after the Federal Reserve slashed its benchmark lending rate by half a percentage point to keep the US economy growing. The Sensex had a gap-up opening of 272 points on the back of positive global cues led by an advance in banking stocks. Maintaining its upward bias thereafter, extensive buying in banking, metal and oil stocks propelled the index to touch an all-time high of 16,335, up 666 points for the day. The Sensex finally ended the session with a gain of 4.17% or 654 points at 16,323. The Nifty also moved up and touched its record high of 4,739 and closed the session at 4,732 up by 4.09% or 186 points.

The breadth of the market was positive, with gainers outnumbering losers in the ratio of 1.23:1. Of the 2,850 stocks traded on the BSE 1,541 stocks advanced, 1,233 stocks declined and 76 stocks ended unchanged. Among the sectoral indices, the BSE Realty Index flared up by 5.77%, the BSE Oil & Gas Index rose 5%, the BSE Bankex Index moved up by 4.84% and the BSE Metal Index was up 3.82%, while the other indices ended with the gains of over 1-3%.

All the Sensex stocks ended at higher levels. Housing Finance major HDFC flared up 7.94% at Rs2,354, HDFC Bank shot up by 7.83% at Rs1,326, Bharti Airtel zoomed 6.46% at Rs886, ONGC moved up by 5.95% at Rs902 and Maruti scaled up 5.76% at Rs926. Reliance Industries surged by 5.56% at Rs2,173, Reliance Communication jumped by 4.96% at Rs564 and ICICI Bank gained 4.90% at Rs970. Tata Steel at Rs745, Bajaj Auto at Rs2,512, M&M at Rs741, and SBI at Rs1,770 rose by over 4% each.

Realty stocks were in demand and attracted strong buying support. DLF spurted by 8.76% at Rs713, Indiabulls Realestate shot up by 6.77% at Rs525, Purvankara Projects flared up 5.75% at Rs415 and Parsvanath Developers jumped by 5.38% at Rs338.

Over 1.84 crore IKF Technologies shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Ispat Industries (1.82 crore shares), Balrampur Chini (1.08 crore shares), IFCI (89.72 lakh shares) and Himachal Futuristic Communication (86.97 lakh shares).

Value wise, DLF clocked a turnover of Rs255 crore followed by Reliance Industries (Rs227 crore), ICICI Bank (Rs148 crore), Reliance Capital (Rs137 crore) and Renuka Sugar (Rs127 crore).