Sensex and nifty jump

Lack of clarity and weak Asian indices saw the Sensex gyrate over 72 points in early trades. After a positive opening, the Sensex eased on profit taking and touched the day's low of 8,659. The market thereafter moved within a range with a mixed bias before buying in select heavy weights and up-move in banking and oil stocks lifted the index to an intra-day high of 9,062. The Sensex ended the session with gains at 9,027, up 331 points and Nifty added 98 points to close at 2,752.

However, the market breadth was negative. Of the 2,227 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,222 stocks declined, while 937 stocks declined. Sixty-eight stocks ended unchanged. All the 13 sectoral indices ended in the green. The BSE Bankex led the pack of gaining sectoral indices rising by 5.96% and the BSE Oil gained 4.41% for the day. Other indices also ended with decent gains.

Buying was witnessed in select blue chip stocks. Sterlite Industries advanced 12.88% at Rs231, ICICI Bank jumped 9.55% at Rs350.50, HDFC Bank added 8.63% at Rs907.20, National Thermal Power Corporation gained 6.93% at Rs164.30, Reliance Industries climbed 6.11% at Rs1,137.20 and DLF moved up by 5.53% at Rs198.60. However, Mahindra & Mahindra dropped 2.55% at Rs269.60 and Maruti Suzuki India was down 0.50% at Rs532.30.

Banking stocks stole the show today. Oriental Bank vaulted 6.24% at Rs143, Axis Bank flared up 6.05% at Rs405.05, Bank of Baroda jumped 4.68% at Rs253.65 and Kotak Bank advanced 4.19% at Rs324.25. Bank of India, State Bank of India, Union Bank, Allahabad Bank and Punjab National Bank were up over 2-3% each.

Over 2.29 crore shares of Unitech changed hands on the BSE followed by Suzlon Energy (1.90 crore shares), GVK Power & Infrastructure (1.26 crore shares), Rajesh Export (0.65 lakh shares) and Reliance Natural Resources (0.61 crore shares).