Sharp bounce back

The market heaved a big sigh of relief after battering of the last session, as a sharp turn-around in noon trades helped the Sensex gain nearly 500 points and close on a firm note above 15000-mark. The bounce-back came after a steep fall of over 500 points in the market since the downslide began in the last session. Although the Sensex opened on a weak note at 14619, around 47 points below its last close of 14666, the index quickly recovered from its lows and remained upbeat all through the session on sustained buying support. The change of guard to firm bullish sentiment came in noon trades, as strong buying in realty, information technology, consumer durable, metal and capital goods stocks spurred the index to an intra-day high of 15161. The Sensex finally ended the session 461 points higher at 15127 whereas Nifty soared 121 points at 4551.

The market breadth was positive. Of the 2,826 stocks traded on the BSE 1,494 stocks advanced, 1290 stocks declined and 42 stocks ended unchanged. All the sectoral indices were back in action and moved up sharply. BSE Realty was the major gainer and rose 6.25%. BSE IT jumped 4.79%, BSE Metal added 4.28%, BSE CD gained 4.18% and BSE CG was up 4.04%.

Several index heavyweights notched up significant gains. Among major gainers, DLF flared up 10.07% at Rs402.70, JP Associates zoomed 8.18% at Rs224.20, Reliance Communications shot up by 7.37% at Rs332.25, Larsen & Toubro flared up 6.39% at Rs1,573.80, Ranbaxy Laboratories vaulted 6.37% at Rs283.15, Mahindra & Mahindra advanced 6.34% at Rs742.50, Tata Consultancy Services scaled up 5.95% at Rs782.05, Tata Power surged 5.55% at Rs1,140.30 and Tata Steel added 5.28% at Rs438.55. Other front-line stocks also moved up by 1-4% each. However, Grasim Industries dropped 0.64% at Rs2366.55 and National Thermal Power Corporation shed 0.61% at Rs212.95.

Over 3.39 crore shares of Unitech changed hands on the BSE followed by Ispat Industries (2.62 crore shares), Suzlon Energy (2.40 crore shares), JP Hydro (1.94 crore shares) and IFCI (1.73 crore shares).