Sensex above 8900

The market continued to scale up and closed firm above 8900 levels. Exhibiting a choppy trend in early trades, Sensex gyrated over 100 points after the opening bell and slipped below 8700 mark on sustained selling pressure to touch the day's low of 8697. Recovery started thereafter and the market rebounded into the positive territory in afternoon. Substantial buying in JP Associates, Mahindra & Mahindra, Ranbaxy Laboratories, Reliance Communications, DLF and ICICI Bank saw Sensex notch up significant gains in late trades and touch a new intra-day high of 8956. Sensex wrapped the session 187 points higher at 8944, while the 50-stock Nifty gained 58 points to close at 2777.

Market breadth, the number of advancing and declining stocks, was positive for the day. Of the 2,545 stocks traded on BSE, 1,611 stocks advanced whereas 847 stocks declined. Eighty seven stocks ended unchanged. All the 13 sectoral indices posted gains for the day. BSE Realty flared 5.35% up and BSE Oil gained 3.44%. Other sectoral indices were up 1-2% each. BSE HC and BSE IT ended in the positive territory with marginal gains.

Recovery in the market was led by JP Associates, which shot up by 8.96% at Rs77.25. Among the other major gainers, Mahindra & Mahindra advanced by 8.48% at Rs374.05, Ranbaxy Laboratories moved up by 6.82% at Rs147.95, Reliance Industries added 3.45% at Rs1,327, DLF scaled 6.16% at Rs161.95 and ICICI Bank jumped 4.52% at Rs322.65. Select index stocks witnessed selling pressure. Sun Pharmaceutical Industries dropped 2.05% at Rs1,000.85. Maruti Suzuki India fell 1.90% at Rs698.85, Grasim Industries declined by 1.03% at Rs1477.90, Infosys Technologies lost 0.62% at Rs1,288.25 and Reliance Infrastructure slipped 0.41% at Rs464.75.

Over 2.09 crore shares of Reliance Natural Resources Ltd (RNRL) changed hands on BSE followed by Unitech (1.38 crore shares), Pennar Industries (1.32 crore shares), Satyam Computer Services (1.20 crore shares) and Suzlon Energy (97 lakh shares).