Market upbeat 169 points

The market held firm above 9600 levels for almost the entire session, as strong US and Asian markets created a perfect platform for the bulls to pursue buying.




Undeterred by the slowdown in foreign institutional investor inflows, Sensex resumed 75 points higher at 9541 and advanced further on substantial buying. While gains continued unabated, buying spree in heavyweights, capital goods, banking, metal, public sector units and auto stocks propelled the index to an intra-day high of 9696 in noon trades. Sensex finally wrapped the session 169 points up at 9635, while Nifty fell short of 2 points to breach the 2950 mark and ended at 2948, up 55 points.

The market breadth was positive. Of the 2,531 stocks traded on the BSE 1,484 stocks advanced, 947 stocks declined and 100 stocks ended unchanged. All sectoral indices bar BSE HC ended positive. BSE Metal index was the major gainer and soared 2.63% followed by BSE Auto (up 2.27%), BSE Metal (up 2.27%) and BSE Realty (up 2.21%) etc.

Front-line stocks once again led the rally. Mahindra & Mahindra was the front-runner amongst the heavyweights and vaulted 7.05% at Rs321. Among the other major gainers ACC rose by 6.06% at Rs582.50, TISCO surged 4.88% at Rs194.50, DLF advanced 4.13% at Rs162.70, Reliance Communications scaled up 3.68% at Rs178.80, Maruti Suzuki India flared up 3.32% at Rs634 and ICICI Bank jumped 3.32% at Rs434.60. Reliance Infrastructure, Bharat Heavy Electricals, JP Associates, Reliance Industries, Sterlite Industries, State Bank of India and Larsen & Toubro gained over 2% each. Ranbaxy Laboratories however lost ground and tumbled 0.82% at Rs211, while Tata Power, Infosys & Bharti lost marginally.

Over 1.30 crore shares of Cals Refineries changed hands on BSE followed by Spice Communications (1.27 crore shares), Hexaware Technologies (1.27 crore shares), Wire & Wireless India Ltd (1.25 crore shares) and Dish TV (1.20 crore shares).