Sensex ends firm above 14,100

The market remained buoyant on strong foreign institutional investor (FII) inflows and the index surged past the 14,200 mark in intra-day trades. Resuming on a negative note at 13,838, 12 points below its previous close of 13,850, Sensex turned positive and crossed the 14,000 mark in the afternoon. A positive close in most of the Asian indices triggered a major rally in heavyweight, fast moving consumer goods (FMCG), power, metal and banking stocks that helped Sensex surge to an intra-day high of 14,206. Sensex finally closed with gains of 254 points at 14,104, while Nifty added 81 points to close at 4,240.

The market breadth was extremely positive. Of the 2,657 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,849 stocks advanced, while only 734 stocks declined; 74 stocks ended unchanged. Among the sectoral indices, BSE FMCG gained 4.35% followed by BSE Power index, which was up 4.29%. BSE Metal index was up 3.96%, BSE Bankex index gained 3.12% and BSE capital goods (CG) index gained 3.10%. BSE public sector unit (PSU) index jumped by 2.50%, BSE information technology (IT) index moved up by 1.89% and BSE consumer durables (CD) index was up 1.66%. BSE TEck index, BSE Oil & Gas index, BSE health care (HC) and BSE Realty index also ended the day in positive. However, BSE Auto index closed in the red, down 0.96%.

Leading the upsurge in Sensex, Reliance Infra soared 6.83% at Rs846. BHEL advanced 6.04% at Rs1597.50, ITC rose 6% at Rs189.90, Wipro advanced 5.93% at Rs394.75, Cipla added 4.99% at Rs237.75, Reliance Communications jumped 4.83% at Rs468.15, Tata Steel gained 4.32% at Rs624.35 and ACC moved up 4.08% at Rs564.50. SBI, M&M, Hindalco, HDFC, ICICI Bank, TCS, L&T, Grasim and HUL also ended the day in positive territory with 2-3% each. However, Maruti Suzuki India dropped 9.29% at Rs587.95, JP Associates was down 4.26% at Rs159.45 while Bharti Airtel, DLF and Tata Motors also ended at lower levels.

On the volume front, over 2.21 crore Reliance Natural Resources Ltd (RNRL) shares changed hands on the BSE followed by IFCI (1.23 crore shares), Reliance Petroleum Ltd (RPL; 0.95 crore shares), Ispat Industries (0.72 crore shares) and JP Associates (0.65 crore shares).