Sensex gains amid sharp volatility

The Sensex seems to be determined to make new highs in every session as bulls eye the 15,000 mark. But today's rally was mainly backed by the upsurge in few select heavyweight stocks. Tracking negative global cues, the Sensex opened 12 points lower and immediately touched the day’s low at 14,529. The strong bearish sentiment kept the Sensex in negative and positive territory throughout the trading session, but a bout of buying in banking and realty stocks catapulted the index to the day's high of 14,987 in the late afternoon. The Sensex finally ended the session at 14,961, up 383 points. The Nifty closed 108 point up at 4,503.

The breadth of the market was positive. Of the 2,767 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,776 (~64%) stocks advanced, 930 (~33%) stocks declined and 61 (~2%) stocks ended unchanged. On the sectoral front, BSE Bankex was up 6.65% at 7,218, BSE Realty index gained 6.56% at 5,575, while the BSE Auto index, BSE Power index, BSE PSU index, BSE CG index, BSE Teck index, BSE FMCG index, BSE IT index, BSE Oil & Gas index and BSE HC index were up by around 1-4% each.


Action in select index heavyweights lifted the market. ICICI Bank led the pack and shot up by 8.24% to Rs693.30. DLF soared 7.66% at Rs553.15, Maruti Suzuki India surged 7.38% at Rs614.40, HDFC Bank flared up by 6.83% at Rs1,184.35, Grasim Industries jumped by 6.56% at Rs2,018.60, JaiPrakash Associates added 6.05% at Rs185.05, Mahindra & Mahindra advanced by 5.46% at Rs548 and ACC moved up by 5.18% at Rs616.15. However Sterlite Industries slipped 6.76% at Rs575.05, Tata Steel fell by 2.28% at Rs675.95, Tata Power lost 1.61% at Rs1,101.35 and Ranbaxy Laboratories was down 1.52% at Rs516.05.

Over 2.74 crore shares of Reliance Natural Resources changed hands on the BSE followed by Ispat Industries (2.07 crore shares), IFCI (1.26 crore shares) and Reliance Petroleum (1.02 crore shares).