Market celebrates Christmas Eve, gains 692 points

Following the global market trend, the index continued its upward march ahead of the festive season. The Sensex resumed 145 points above its previous close and rallied sharply amid strong bullish sentiment. While the mood remained upbeat, the renewed buying interest in information technology and the rally in oil, metal and banking stocks gathered more steam towards the closing hours. The index surged to touch the day's high of 19,879 and added 716 points for the day. The Sensex finally ended the session with a gain of 3.61% or 692 points at 19,854 whereas the Nifty soared by 3.79% or 219 points at 5985.

The breadth of the market was extremely positive, with gainers outnumbering losers in the ratio of 2.01:1. Of the 2,937 stocks traded on the BSE 1,945 stocks advanced, 965 stocks declined and 27 stocks ended unchanged. Among the sectoral indices the BSE IT Index flared up by 6.04%, the BSE TecK Index rose 4.90%, the BSE Oil & Gas Index moved up by 3.53% and the BSE Bankex was up 3.38%. The other indices also ended with sharp gains.

Barring Bajaj Auto, Maruti Suzuki and ACC, all the other Sensex stocks ended at higher levels. IT major Wipro flared up 8.86% at Rs535, Infosys bounced back sharply and shot up by 6.63% at Rs1,811, HDFC zoomed 6.33% at Rs2,897, Satyam Computer moved up by 6.28% at Rs455, Reliance Energy scaled up 6.14% at Rs2,059, Bharti Airtel surged by 6.07% at Rs970, TCS jumped by 6.07% at Rs1,109 and BHEL gained 5.08% at Rs2,489.

IT stocks saw renewed buying interest after a brief lull earlier this year. HCL Tech spurted by 5.39% at Rs327, Patni Computer shot up by 4.97% at Rs329, Mphasis flared up 4.96% at Rs302 and NIIT Tech jumped by 4.37% at Rs241.

Over 3.81 crore IFCI shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Bellary Steel (2.42 crore shares), Ispat Industries (1.34 crore shares), IKF Technologies (1.33 crore shares) and Kashyap Technologies (1.08 crore shares).

Value-wise IFCI clocked a turnover of Rs300 crore followed by Reliance Energy (Rs242 crore), Mundra Ports (Rs143 crore), Reliance Industries (Rs131 crore) and Reliance Petroleum (Rs131 crore).