Sensex sails past 16300; Metal, CG trigger rally

The market remained upbeat on the extended day's trading session and registered gains of more than 300 points during the intra-day trades on phenomenal buying in metal, consumer goods, information technology (IT) and consumer durables (CD) stocks. After a slight hiccup in early trades, where the Sensex opened 85 points higher over its last close at 16,016 and soon dipped to an intra-day low of 15,884, it came off its early lows and remained firm thereafter on sustained buying support. The index breached the 16,400 mark in early noon trades and appreciated further to touch an intra-day high of 16,452, up 568 points from the day's low. The Sensex finally ended 2.22% or 356 points higher at 16,371, while the Nifty advanced 2.30% or 112 points to close at 4,942.

In broader market, gainers outpaced losers by nearly 6:1 on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). Of the 2,742 stocks traded, 2,333 stocks advanced, 370 stocks declined and 39 stocks ended unchanged. All sectoral indices managed to end with significant gains. The BSE Metal index was the major gainer and soared 5.78% followed by the BSE CG index (up 5.40%), the BSE IT index (up 4.98%), the BSE CD index (up 4.86%), the BSE Realty index (up 4.36% and the BSE Power index (up 4.16%).

Leading the upsurge, Tata Steel vaulted 9.46% at Rs716.75, Larsen & Toubro shot up by 6.19% at Rs3,147, Infosys advanced by 5.94% at Rs1,526, Wipro scaled up 5.56% at Rs454 and BHEL moved up by 5.37% at Rs2,092. Among other gainers, Jaiprakash Associates at Rs240.40, NTPC at Rs204.25, REL at Rs1,333, Satyam Computer at Rs408.45, DLF at Rs695.70, RIL at Rs2,347 and ITC at Rs 206.30 gained above 3% each. Select frontline counters however eased on profit taking. HDFC Bank dropped 2.36% at Rs1,401, HDFC declined 1.81% at Rs2,613, ONGC lost 1.65% at Rs1,051 and Tata Motors shed 1.41% at Rs645.

Metal stocks witnessed sustained buying support. Jindal Steel flared up 15.91% at Rs2,218, Tata Steel jumped 9.46% at Rs716.75, Welspun Gujarat added 7.12% at Rs389.65, Ispat Industries scaled up 5.70% at Rs32.45 and Sterlite Industries gained 5.18% at Rs756.15. Shree precoated, Jindal Saw, Maharashtra Seamless, Gujarat NRE and Sesa Goa shot up by over 3-5% each. Consumer goods too registered a smart bounce back. Suzlon Energy zoomed 12.57% at Rs270, Alstom Projects soared 7.47% at Rs546, Praj Industries scaled up 6.96% at Rs132.10 and Punj Lloyd surged by 5.90% at Rs333.15. AIA Engineer, Kisloskar Oil, Kalptaru, BHEL, Jyoti Structures, Thermax, Lakshmi Machine and Crompton rose by 4-5% each.

Over 1.92 crore Ispat Industries shares changed hands on the BSE followed by RNRL (1.55 crore shares), IFCI (1.02 crore shares), RPL (0.98 crore shares) and Centurion Bank of Punjab (0.83 crore shares).

Reliance Industries was the most actively traded counter on the BSE and registered a turnover of Rs356 crore followed by Reliance Capital (Rs263 crore), HDFC (Rs236 crore), RNRL (Rs160 crore) and SAIL (Rs159 crore)