Sensex rebounds

After crashing over 1,000 points in the last five sessions, the market witnessed a strong relief rally on across-the-board buying through the day. The strong optimism in key indices triggered a steep rally and the Bankex index managed to register gains of over 4%. Sensex opened on a strong note with a positive gap of 334 points at 12,910, but quickly tumbled; anyway, it remained upbeat all through the session on sustained buying support. The rally gathered steam towards the close and Sensex touched an intra-day high of 13,150 before ending the session at 13,112, up 536 points. Nifty also bounced back sharply and advanced 130 points to close at 3,947.

The breadth of the market was absolutely positive. Of the 2,689 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,529 stocks advanced, 1,088 stocks declined and 72 stocks ended unchanged. All the sectoral indices closed with significant gains except the BSE Metal index. The BSE Bankex index was the major gainer and soared 6.06% followed by the BSE CG index (up 5.92%), the BSE Realty index (up 4.95%), the BSE Power index (up 4.20%) and the BSE Auto index (up 4.16%). The BSE Metal index was however down by 2%.

Among the 30 Sensex stocks, 28 ended in the green. Attracting strong buying support HDFC surged 9.78% at Rs1,888.70, Maruti Suzuki India soared 9.52% at Rs600, JP Associates jumped 9.19% at Rs149.05, DLF advanced 8.44% at Rs427.20, State Bank of India (SBI) added 7.75% at Rs1,227.05, Larsen & Toubro zoomed 7.49% at Rs2440, Tata Consultancy Services gained 7.13% at Rs779.50, ICICI Bank vaulted 6.08% at Rs551.20 and HDFC Bank was up 6.03% at Rs958.10. Other frontline stocks also moved up by 2-5% each.

Banking stocks witnessed sustained buying support. Axis Bank surged 8.73% at Rs635.50, UBI jumped 7.94% at Rs108.05, SBI added 7.75% at Rs1,227.05, Bank Of India advanced 7.31% at Rs243.65 and ICICI Bank gained 6.08% at Rs551.20. Kotak Bank, Yes Bank and Punjab National Bank were up over 4% each.

Over 1.91 crore Reliance Petroleum shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Reliance Natural Resources (1.55 crore shares), IFCI (1.44 crore shares), Ispat Industries (1.05 crore shares) and Chambal Fertilisers (89 lakh shares).