Sensex ends on bullish note

Riding on the back of three straight sessions of gains, the Sensex opened firm at 19,941 and crossed the 20,000 mark by mid-morning trades. Short coverings in December derivative contracts and firm global cues triggered major buying in Sensex stocks in morning trades. The Sensex rallied sharply as investors continued to roll over positions to January series and the Sensex touched an intra-day high of 20,212 by afternoon. The market remained buoyant for the entire trading session on substantial buying support from oil, metal, and capital goods stocks. The Sensex finally wrapped up the session with gains of 1.70% or 338 points at 20,193. The Nifty advanced by 1.43% or 85 points at 6,071.

The breadth of the market was positive. Of the 2,945 stocks traded on the BSE, 2,283 stocks advanced, 639 stocks declined and 23 stocks ended unchanged. All the sectoral indices on the BSE ended in positive territory. The BSE Oil & Gas ended firm with gains of 3.49% at 13,121,the BSE Realty index rose 2.82% at 12,152 and the BSE Metal index added 2.34% at 19,262.

Action in several index heavyweights lifted the market. DLF led the pack and shot up by 4.35% at Rs1,014. Hindalco soared 4.18% at Rs209, Reliance Industries surged 3.90% at Rs2,897, Tata Steel flared up by 3.51% at Rs893, Tata Motors jumped by 3.31% at Rs751, SBI added 2.97% at Rs2,399, BHEL advanced by 2.63% at Rs2,555, Reliance Energy moved up by 2.58% at Rs2,112 and L&T was up 2.57% at Rs4,194. However, Bajaj Auto slipped 1.14% at Rs2,682, while TCS at Rs1,098, ONGC at Rs1,236, HLL at Rs215 and HDFC at Rs2,889 dropped marginally.

Over 2.41 crore GV Films shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Ispat Industries (1.92 crore shares), IKF Technologies (1.79 crore shares), Bella Steel (1.23 crore shares) and Reliance Petroleum (1.08 crore shares).

Valuewise, Reliance Energy registered a turnover of Rs199 crore on the BSE followed by reliance Industries (Rs173 crore), Reliance Communications (Rs145 crore), L&T (Rs68 crore) and DLF (Rs52 crore).