After opening with a huge positive gap of 46 points at 10,996, the Sensex continued its upward march on the back of unabated buying. The index zoomed to a new all-time intra-day high of 11,101 before settling at a record level of 11,079 - up 1.2% (129 points).FMCG and metal stocks were the prime movers of today's rally. While the BSE Metal Index soared nearly 4% to 8499, the FMCG Index surged 3.4% to 2174. The Oil & Gas Index moved up 1.7% to 4844. The Consumer Durables Index, however, dropped over 1% to 3199.The market breadth was positive today. Out of 2,595 stocks traded, 1,365 advanced, 1,156 declined and 74 were unchanged.HLL and Tata Steel surged over 5% each to Rs 269 and Rs 518, respectively. ITC soared 4% to Rs 193.Hindalco spurted over 3% to Rs 175. ACC and ONGC rallied nearly 3% each to Rs 785 and Rs 1,257, respectively.Bharti Tele advanced 2.6% to Rs 393. Cipla and Gujarat Ambuja added 2% each to Rs 639 and Rs 98.35, respectively.Wipro slipped 2.2% to Rs 520.NEWS-DRIVEN MOVESAurobindo Pharma zoomed to a high of Rs 690 before settling with a gain of 4% at Rs 674 on the news that the company's board will meet on April 1 to consider a proposal for an FCCB issue.Hindustan Construction soared to a high of Rs 196 after a consortium of the company, SPAS of Norway and Ozaltin of Turkey won a Rs 4,312.50 crore order. The company's share in the order is pegged at Rs 1,940.63 crore. The stock finally ended with a gain of 3.5% at Rs 181.PBA Infrastructure rallied 7% to Rs 175 today after the company announced that it had secured multiple orders worth Rs 155.65 crore.Kalpatru Power hit the 20% upper limit at Rs 1,945. The company today announced that the board of directors are scheduled to meet on March 31 to consider a proposal for bonus shares or stock split. The stock finally ended with a gain of 13.5% at Rs 1,839.OTHER GAINERS & LOSERSState Bank of Mysore and Southern Iron & Steel zoomed 20% each to Rs 7,875 and Rs 16.93, respectively. Himachal Futuristic, Sadbhav Engineering, Essar Shipping, Gati, Ind-Swift Labs, Berger Paints, Mahindra Gesco, Prism Cements, Praj Industries, JSW Steel, Shanti Gears, Coromandel Fertilisers and Provogue finished with significant gains today.Goetze India plunged 7% to Rs 238. India Infoline, Asha Minechem, Nectar Life, Lanxess ABS, KLG Systel, Onward Technology, Reliance Natural Resources, ABG Shipyard, Sakuma Exports, Noida Toll, Teledata, Pratibha, Goodricke, VisualSoft and Ingersoll Rand were the other prominent losers.VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERSTata Steel topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 176.05 crore followed by HDFC (Rs 152.32 crore), SAIL (Rs 147.59 crore), HDFC Bank (Rs 120.23 crore) and Infosys (Rs 112.92 crore).SAIL led the volume chart with trades of around 1.74 crore shares followed by G V Films (1.10 crore), Prism Cements (87.09 lakh), Reliance Natural Resources (85.08 lakh) and Ambalal Sarabhai (73 lakh).F&O WATCHHuge short-covering towards the end saw the March Nifty futures end at a premium of seven points at 3329 as against the spot Nifty at 3322. During the day, the futures traded at a discount 1-10 points. The April Nifty futures finished at 3321 - a discount of one point, and the May series settled at a discount of 10 points at 3312.The open interest in March futures declined by 11,50,100. The April series added 48,64,300 in the open interest and May series added 10,700.
