Sensex rallies, despite mixed global cues

Despite getting mixed signals from Asian markets, the Sensex resumed on a positive note at 19,547, up 184 points. The undertone remained bullish for the entire trading session, with the Sensex crossing 19,550 mark in early trades and maintaining its upward bias thereafter. While market remained upbeat on strong buying in consumer durables, metal, oil and power stocks, the rally gathered momentum in the afternoon and the Sensex touched the day's high of 19,619. The Sensex finally ended the session with a gain of 240 points or 1.24% at 19,603. The Nifty rose 102 points or 1.77% to close at 5,865.

Among the sectoral indices, the CD index led the upsurge with a gain of 6.83% at 5,732 followed by the BSE Oil & Gas index (up 3.45% at 12,786), the BSE Power index (up 3.22% at 4,484) and the BSE Metal index (up 3.11% at 18,281). The market breadth was extremely positive with gainers outpacing the losers in the ratio of 2.85:1. Of the 2,854 stocks traded on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) 2,087 stocks advanced, 709 stocks declined and 58 stocks ended unchanged.

Out of the 30 Sensex stocks, 24 managed to end with gains while six stocks ended with losses. Reliance Energy was the leading gainer and soared 9.32% at Rs1,900. Wipro jumped 7.19% at Rs493, Reliance Communication shot up by 5.48% at Rs712, TCS advanced 3.85% at Rs1,053, Hindalco moved up by 3.37% at Rs192, BHEL added 3.02% at Rs2,761 and Reliance Industries gained 2.86% at Rs2,932. Among the laggards ICICI Bank dropped 1.64% at Rs1,165, Bharti Airtel shed 1.61% at Rs924, HDFC declined by 1.37% at Rs2,746, HDFC Bank fell 1.04% at Rs1,701, while HLL and Infosys slipped marginally at Rs206 and Rs1,600 respectively.

Over 5.88 crore IDFC shares changed hands on the BSE followed by IFCI (4.38 crore shares), Tata Teleservices (2.42 crore shares), Ispat Industries (2.41 crore shares) and Essar Oil (2.33 crore shares).

IDFC registered a turnover of Rs1,215 crore on the BSE followed by Essar Oil (Rs660 crore), IFCI (Rs459 crore), Reliance Petroleum (Rs371 crore) and Reliance Energy (Rs315 crore).