Bulls back with vengeance

After registering a loss of 370 points yesterday, today the Sensex was 90 points up, at 11092, at opening bell on the back of positive global leads.
Maintaining its upward bias thereafter, extensive buying in information technology, banking, technology and oil & gas stocks saw it edge past 11400 mark and touch an intra-day high of 11430, up 428 points for the day. The Sensex wrapped the session 402 points higher at 11403. The 50-share Nifty of the NSE finished at 3474 points, up 112 points.

Market breadth, the number of advancing shares to declining shares, was exceedingly positive for BSE. Of the 2,546 stocks traded, 1,432 stocks advanced while 1,028 stocks declined. Eighty six stocks ended unchanged. All the 13 sectoral indices ended higher. BSE IT, the index of IT shares, flared up by 4.95% followed by the BSE Bankex (up 4.47%), so did BSE Teck (up 3.99%) and BSE Oil & Gas (up 3.48%). Other indices were up 1-3% each.

Except Grasim Industries, all other index stocks ended higher. ICICI Bank was the day's star performer, up 8.74% at Rs477.75. Among other major gainers, JP Associates surged 6.85% at Rs138.80, Sterlite Industries vaulted 6.75% at Rs383.20, Tata Power spurted 6.60% at Rs893.95, Infosys Technologies jumped by 5.29% at Rs1507.30, Reliance Infrastructure scaled up by 4.99% at Rs695.20, Wipro advanced by 4.79% at Rs330.50, Hindustan Unilever added 4.20% at Rs234.55 and Tata Consultancy Services rose 4.11% at Rs623.20. Grasim Industries, the only stock posting loss for the day, slumped 0.54% at Rs1,778.40.

IT stocks upgraded to higher levels on the back of firm Asian indices. Patni Computer Systems soared 7.41% at Rs161.55, Financial Technologies India rose 6.94% at Rs707.65, Rolta India zoomed 5.91% at Rs79.70, Infosys Technologies advanced 5.29% at Rs1507.30, Oracle shot up by 4.93% at Rs883.85 and Wipro added 4.79% at Rs330.50.

Over 7.41 crore shares of Unitech changed hands on the BSE followed by Cals refineries (5.88 crore shares), JP Associates (1.10 crore shares), Reliance Natural Resources (1.10 crore shares) and Suzlon Energy (0.98 lakh shares).