Market zooms on heavyweight buying

The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 47 points at 15,390, but dropped to a low of 15,321 in morning deals. Sustained buying in heavyweights, thereafter, saw the index log gains, and move up to a high of 15,852 in noon deals - an intra-day gain of over 500 points.

The Sensex finally closed with a gain of 414 points (2.7%) at 15,757.

The BSE Bankex and the FMCG index gained over 4% each at 7904 and 2384, respectively.

The market breadth was bullish - out of over 2,600 scrips traded, over 1,500 logged gains today.

INDEX GAINERS

ICICI Bank advanced nearly 6% to Rs 809. Ranbaxy was up over 5% at Rs 484. Jaiprakash Associates moved up nearly 5% to Rs 232.

HUL and ITC were up over 4% each at Rs 253 and Rs 210, respectively.

Reliance added over 3% at Rs 2,406. SBI was up over 4% at Rs 1,673.

Wipro, TCS, Satyam, Bharti and Tata Steel also finished with gains today.

MOST ACTIVE COUNTERS

Reliance Capital was the most active counter with a turnover of Rs 229 crore followed by Orchid Chemicals (Rs 204 crore), Reliance Petroleum (Rs 183 crore), BHEL (Rs 182 crore) and Reliance (Rs 168 crore).