Market ends upbeat, gains 395 points

Sensex opened on a firm note at 19,171 and rallied further on substantial buying in metal and capital goods stocks. Despite the slowdown in FII inflows, the Sensex rallied further to touch the intra-day high of 19,360 on substantial buying support. The market remained firm above the 19,150 level for the entire trading session as firm Asian and European indices helped investors to pursue buying. However, profit bookings at higher levels dragged the index to its day's low of 19,138, above 285 points its previous close. The market recovered in the afternoon but the Sensex shed some of its profits towards the close. The Sensex finally wrapped up the session with a gain of 2.09% or 395 points at 19,248. The Nifty rose by 2.19% and gained 123 points to close at 5,732.

Among the sectoral indices, the Metal index led the upsurge with gains of 5.61% at 17,525 followed by the BSE Realty index (up 3.05% at 10,081), the BSE CG index (up 2.25% at 19,751) and the BSE Power (up 2.20% at 4,377). The market breadth was extremely positive. Of the 2,865 stocks traded on the BSE 1,820 stocks advanced, 986 stocks declined and 59 stocks ended unchanged.

Out of the 30 Sensex stocks, 28 managed to end in the green while two stocks ended with losses. HDFC Bank was the lead gainer and soared 5.18% at Rs1,644. Bharti Airtel jumped 3.78% at Rs948, Reliance Energy shot up by 3.74% at Rs1,790, Tata Steel advanced 3.47% at Rs849, ONGC moved up by 3.35% at Rs1,184, Hindalco added 3.32% at Rs194 and Grasim gained 2.94% at Rs3,734. Among the laggards Tata Motors and SBI slipped marginally.

Over 2.46 crore Reliance Petroleum shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Tata Teleservices (1.56 crore shares), Ispat Industries (1.56 crore shares), JP Hydro (1.47 crore shares) and Reliance Natural Resources (1.03 crore shares).

Reliance Petroleum registered a turnover of Rs515 crore on the BSE followed by Jindal Steel (Rs312 crore), Reliance Energy (Rs202 crore), Empee Distilleries (Rs176 crore) and JP Hydro (Rs168 crore).