Sensex gains, ends off-highs

The market sentiment remained upbeat for the second straight session, but gains tapered off after the Sensex rallied past 15,450 in early trades. On the back of firm international indices, the Sensex opened with a sharp positive gap of 492 points at 15,326 and moved up sharply to touch the day's high of 15,465. However, the market came under a sharp bout of profit taking and was 100 points away from slipping below the yesterday's close, with the index slipping to an intra-day low of 14,930. However, steady to firm buying in afternoon trades once again lifted the Sensex past 15,000, but selective profit taking saw it close at 15,022, up 189 points. The Nifty gained 53 points to close at 4,586.

The breadth of the market remained negative. Of the 2,749 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,900 stocks declined, 781 stocks advanced and 68 stocks ended unchanged. Except consumer durables , power and realty, all the eight sectoral indices ended in positive territory. The BSE IT index rose 2.14% at 3,370 and the BSE Teck index added 1.79% at 2,887.

Among the front-line stocks, Satyam Computers led the up-move and soared 5.24% at Rs389.95, Tata Motors rose 5.08% at Rs650.45, Wipro jumped 4.64% at Rs376.60 and M&M advanced 3.49% at Rs658.40. However, Hindalco dropped 4.09% at Rs154.95, HUL fell 2.49% at Rs225.30 and REL was down around 1.85% at Rs1,206.50.

IT stocks logged significant gains. Rolta India vaulted 2.53% at Rs260, NIIT flared up 2.37% at Rs99.45, HCL shot up by 2.33% at Rs255.05, Patni Computers advanced 2.25% at Rs207.15 and Infosys added 2.19% at Rs1,341.90. All the teck stocks also helped the Sensex to close in positive territory with Sun TV, Deccan Chronicle, Reliance Communications and Zee Enterprises gaining over 1-2% each.

Over 1.96 crore RNRL shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Ispat Industries (1.26 crore shares), RPL (1.07 crore shares), Essar Steel (0.83 crore shares) and Jaiprakash Associates (0.70 crore shares).