Sensex 19k in just five sessions

The benchmark Sensex zoomed around 600 points at noon to touch the 19000 mark on revival of buying in metal, refinery and banking stocks. The Sensex, which lost nearly 395 points on Friday, resumed its record-setting journey despite mixed global cues and gained 677 points to touch the all-time high of 19096 as most of the metal stocks led by Tata Steel rose smartly. Today the market rallied on the government's plans to serve its full term, helping the Sensex to hit the 17th record high in 18 sessions. The Sensex finally ended the session with gains of 3.47% and was up 639 points at 19059. The Nifty advanced 4.46% and was up 242 points at 5670.

The market breadth was highly positive, with the gainers outpacing the losers in the ratio of 2.15:1 on the BSE. Of the 2,838 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,899 stocks advanced, 875 stocks declined and 64 stocks ended unchanged. All the sectoral indices notched up significant gains. The BSE Metal Index was the biggest gainer and soared 9.16% followed by the BSE PSU Index (up 5.57%), the BSE Oil & Gas Index (up 4.51%) and the BSE Bankex (up 4.25%).

Except HLL and Infosys all the stocks in the Sensex basket ended at higher levels. Reliance Energy led the upsurge and flared by 12.90% at Rs1,847. Among the other major gainers, ONGC surged 9.11% at Rs1,191, Tata Steel moved up by 7.46% at Rs911, Maruti Udyog advanced 5.79% at Rs1,160, Hindalco vaulted 5.56% at Rs189, Bharti Airtel shot up by 5.38% at Rs1,127, SBI added 5.08% at Rs1,957 and Reliance Communication rose 4.87% at Rs753.

Metal stocks were the star attraction during the day and rallied sharply. Sail surged 15.41% to close at Rs259, Sterlite Industries soared 14.37% at Rs931, Sesa Goa jumped 13.16% at Rs3,318, JSW Steel added 12.05% at Rs991 and Bhushan Steel gained 8.26% at Rs1,073.

Over 2.96 crore Reliance Natural Resources shares changed hands on the BSE followed by Jai Corp (2.19 crore shares), Tata Teleservices (1.57 crore shares), Reliance Petroleum (1.32 crore shares) and Ispat Industries (1.30 crore shares).

Jai Corp was the most actively traded counter on the BSE and registered a turnover of Rs2,275 crore followed by Reliance Energy (Rs484 crore), Consol Construction (Rs452 crore), Reliance Industries (Rs369 crore) and Reliance Natural Resources (Rs285 crore).