Sensex continues its winning streak

The Sensex has been maintaining a firm tone for the last five days and added another 336 points and closed at 15,504 on sustained buying in heavyweights, reality and banking stocks. The market opened strong at 15,430 on firm Asian cues and continued its rally to touch the intra-day high of 15,521. The index also received major support from JP Associates, Reliance Energy and ICICI Bank, which gained around 5-7% today. However, profit booking at higher levels and selling in few pivotal stocks dragged the Sensex to touch the day's low of 15,368. The market remained firm in the afternoon, but surged further on late round buying and ended firm above 15,500. The broad based Nifty closed at 4,620, up 91 points.

The breadth of the market was positive. Of the 2,776 stocks traded on the BSE 1,738 stocks advanced, 970 stocks declined and 68 stocks ended unchanged. Among the sectoral indices, the BSE Realty ended firm with gains of 5.27% at 5,799 and BSE Bankex rose 4.16% at 7,702. However, BSE Oil & Gas index, BSE PSU index, BSE Power index, BSE CG index, BSE Auto index and BSE FMCG index ended with gain of 1-2%.

Action in several index heavyweights lifted the market. JP Associates led the pack and shot up by 7.68% at Rs197.60. Reliance Energy soared 6.86% at Rs1,102, ICICI Bank surged 5.74% at Rs770.75, Maruti Suzuki India flared up by 5.27% at Rs715.50, State Bank of India jumped by 4.65% at Rs1,592.60, ONGC added 3.70% at Rs1,103.40, Reliance Communications advanced by 3.65% at Rs454.45, DLF moved up by 3.57% at Rs568.05 and Reliance Industries was up 3.36% at Rs2,326. However, Sterlite Industries at Rs624.90, Tata Consultancy Services at Rs833.60, Tisco at Rs644.80, Infosys at Rs1,670 and Hindalco at Rs144.50 dropped around 0.10-1% each.

Over 1.72 crore Reliance Natural Resources shares changed hands on the BSE followed by IFCI (0.99 crore shares), TTML (0.69 crore shares), Ispat Industries (0.57 crore shares) and Nagarjuna Fertilisers (0.57 crore shares).