Sensex rallies on buoyant overseas markets

The market held firm above the 17,450 level for almost the entire trading session, as strong US and Asian markets created a perfect platform for investors. After registering a gain of 341 points yesterday, the market resumed with a huge positive gap of 316 points at 17,265. The Sensex quickly moved up on sustained buying in realty, power, oil and capital goods stocks and the index touched the day's high of 17,838 towards the close. The Sensex finally ended the session at 17,767, up 817 points. The broad-based Nifty ended the session at 5,202, up 573 points.

Among the sectoral indices, the power index led the upsurge on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) with gains of 8.14% at 3,729 followed by the BSE Realty index (up 7.58% at 10,144), the BSE PSU index (up 7.55% at 8,352), the BSE CG index (up 7.53% at 16,282) and the BSE Oil & Gas index (up 7.42% at 10,932). The market breadth was extremely positive. Of the 2,794 stocks traded on the BSE, 2,068 stocks advanced, 684 stocks declined and 42 stocks ended unchanged.

Out of the 30 Sensex stocks, 29 managed to end in the green. BHEL was the leading gainer and soared 12.63% at Rs2,232. Reliance Energy jumped 9.63% at Rs1,708, Reliance Communications shot up by 9.26% at Rs610, Hindalco advanced 9.20% at Rs164, ONGC moved up by 8.66% at Rs1,026, L&T added 7.03% at Rs3,507 and NTPC gained 6.84% at Rs201. However, Infosys slipped marginally at Rs1,547.

Over 2.67 crore Reliance Natural Resources shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Jaiprakash Associates (1.86 crore shares), Reliance Petroleum ( 1.46 crore shares), Ispat Industries ( 1.13 crore shares) and Nagarjuna Fertilisers (1.05 crore shares).

Jaiprakash Associates registered a turnover of Rs501 crore on the BSE followed by RNRL (Rs339 crore), Reliance Power (Rs303 crore), Reliance Capital (Rs237 crore) and Reliance Petroleum (Rs230 crore).