Sensex surges on firm overseas markets

Solid gains in the Asian markets helped the domestic index open with a huge positive gap of 302 points at 19,337 and rise over 5% during intra-day trades. Correction once again took a back seat as bulls went on a rampage and provided healthy support to the market. The market, which gained around 300 points in yesterday's trades, remained firm as hectic buying was witnessed since early trades that lasted through the session. The Sensex received major support from the firm US and Asian markets. Relentless buying in index heavyweights, banking, oil, and information technology stocks propelled the index to an intra-day high of 19,988, up 952 points over its last close. The Sensex finally ended the session with a gain of 894 points at 19,929, while the Nifty surged 243 points at 5,938.

The market breadth was very positive, with the gainers outpacing the losers in the ratio of 2.65:1 on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). Of the 2,850 stocks traded on the BSE, 2,024 stocks advanced, 764 stocks declined and 62 stocks ended unchanged. All the sectoral indices notched up significant gains. BSE Bankex was the biggest gainer and soared 6.53% followed by BSE Oil & Gas index (up 6.40%), BSE IT index (up 4.51%), BSE Metal index (up 4.16%), BSE PSU index (up 3.91%) and BSE Teck index (up 3.83%).

All the 30 stocks in the Sensex basket ended at higher levels. HDFC Bank led the upsurge and flared by 10.81% at Rs1,749. Among the other major gainers ICICI Bank surged 8.65% at Rs1,278, Reliance Industries moved up by 7.11% at Rs2,888, Hindalco advanced 6.95% at Rs218, Wipro vaulted 6.84% at Rs471, HDFC shot up by 6.51% at Rs2,756, Satyam Computer added 4.92% at Rs431 and Infosys rose 4.84% at Rs1,706.

Banking stocks were the star attraction during the day and rallied sharply. Punjab National Bank soared 9.46% at Rs601, Oriental Bank jumped 7.60% at Rs256, Union Bank added 4.65% at Rs186 and Axis Bank gained 4.20% at Rs989.

Over 3.05 crore Reliance Petroleum shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Ispat Industries (2 crore shares), RNRL (1.99 crore shares), Essar Oil (1.88 crore shares) and Faccor Steel (1.38 crore shares).

Reliance Petroleum was the most actively traded counter on the BSE and registered a turnover of Rs682 crore followed by Reliance Industries (Rs541 crore), RNRL (Rs344 crore), Reliance Energy (Rs238 crore) and Essar Oil (Rs205 crore).