Sensex above 15900

The market continued to scale up and closed firm above 15900 levels. Exhibiting a choppy trend in early trades, Sensex gyrated over 250 points after the opening bell and slipped around 15600 mark on sustained selling pressure to touch the day's low of 15608. Recovery started thereafter and the market rebounded into the positive territory in afternoon. Substantial buying in Hindalco Industries, Mahindra & Mahindra, Reliance Communications, Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) and Tata Steel saw Sensex notch up significant gains in late trades and touch a new intra-day high of 1596. Sensex wrapped the session 254 points higher at 15924, while the 50-stock Nifty gained 75 points to close at 4711.

Market breadth, the number of advancing stocks to declining stocks, was positive for the day. Of the 2,785 stocks traded on BSE, 1,761 stocks advanced whereas 953 stocks declined. Seventy one stocks ended unchanged. All the 13 sectoral indices bar BSE FMCG and BSE CD posted gains for the day. BSE Auto flared 4.60% up and BSE Realty gained 4.19%. Other sectoral indices were up 1-3% each.

Recovery in the market was led by Hindalco Industries, which shot up by 7.98% to Rs108.20. Among other major gainers, Mahindra & Mahindra advanced 6.88% to Rs915.75, Reliance Communications moved up 5.17% to Rs289.90, BHEL added 5.15% to move to Rs2,342.70, Tata Steel scaled 4.52% to Rs483.60 and Tata Power jumped 4.31% to Rs1,358.50. Select index stocks witnessed heavy selling pressure. Hindustan Unilever dropped 2.25% to Rs284.65. ITC India fell 0.70% to Rs248.30, HDFC Bank declined 0.39% to Rs1,493.70 and HDFC slipped 0.17% to Rs2,526.75.

Over 2.39 crore shares of Unitech changed hands on the BSE followed by Suzlon Energy (2.13 crore shares), Ispat Industries (1.87 crore shares), Excel Infoways (1.70 crore shares) and Reliance Natural Resources (97 lakh shares).