Sensex ends at all-time closing high

 Taking off from the firm close yesterday, the Sensex opened with a positive gap of 37 points at 6,195, and immediately breached the 6,200-levels.

The markets moved in a range-bound (positive) mode till mid-noon trades between 6,200 and 6,220 levels. Fresh buying towards the closing bell lifted the index to an intra-day high of 6,248 - slightly short of the all-time, intra-day high of 6,249.

The Sensex finally closed with a gain of 76 points at 6,234. The Nifty ended 19 points higher at 1,959.

While 22 Sensex stocks advanced, eight declined today. Advancing shares accounted for a volume of 1.62 crore amounting to Rs 832.02 crore, and declining shares registered a volume of 27 lakh for Rs 125.21 crore.

The market breadth, however, was negative as losers outnumbered gainers nearly 3:1. Out of 2,453 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,814 declined, 599 advanced and 40 were unchanged today.

Reliance came off from its intra-day high of Rs 523, but closed on a firm note with a gain of 1.36% (Rs 7) at Rs 517. Over 40.53 lakh shares were traded on BSE.

HLL, after a mixed outing, ended 2.85% higher (Rs 4) at Rs 145. ITC, which had a positive opening, slipped into the red to close weaker at Rs 1,288 - down Rs 2.

Infosys advanced 2.75% (Rs 57) to Rs 2,148. While Wipro added Rs 4 to Rs 766, Satyam was up a rupee at Rs 433.

SBI and ICICI Bank were up a per cent each at Rs 530 (up Rs 5) and Rs 340 (up Rs 4), respectively.

ONGC ended off-highs with a per cent gain (Rs 8) at Rs 814.

Bharti jumped 3% (Rs 5) to Rs 174. While HDFC moved up 4% (Rs 31) to Rs 801, Hindalco added 1.59% (Rs 20) TO Rs 1,307. L&T shot up 2.89% (Rs 25) to Rs 903.

HPCL, however, was down 2.25% (Rs 8) at Rs 339.

Hero Honda moved up 2.16% (Rs 10) to Rs 493. While Bajaj was up a per cent (Rs 6) at Rs 1,010, Maruti was up a tad at Rs 420. Tata Motors, however, was down 1.59% at Rs 483.

Ranbaxy attracted considerable buying support, and rose 3.51% (Rs 38) to Rs 1,124. Other pharma counters, however, eased on selling pressure.

NTPC clocked a highest volume of 1.56 crore on the BSE followed by SAIL at 1.28 crore and Orbit Multimedia at 1.20 crore, respectively.

Reliance topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 210 crore on the BSE. While NTPC clocked a turnover of Rs 123 crore, Infosys ended with a turnover of Rs 113 crore.
 

Nifty December futures ends at discount The Nifty December futures closed at 1,958 - a one point discount to the spot Nifty. While the Nifty January series also ended at 1,958, the Nifty February futures finished at 1,959.

The total turnover of the NSE F&O stood at Rs 11,154.28 crore from 3,31,404 contracts.

While index futures clocked a volume of 56,090 contracts amounting to Rs 2,188.19 crore, stock futures registered a volume of 2,32,861 contracts amounting to Rs 7,451.60 crore.

Index options recorded a volume of around 16,566 contracts amounting to Rs 649.81 crore. Stock options saw trades of 25,887 contracts amounting to Rs 864.68 crore.

Nifty December futures was the most active contract and the open interest was up 4,57,200 followed by Reliance (down 3,63,300), Tisco (up 1,89,000), NTPC (up 59,44,250) and Infosys (down 77,600).

Most active calls - Nifty 1,950, Nifty 1,900, Nifty 1,970, NTPC 80 and Reliance 520.

Most active puts - Nifty 1,900, Nifty 1,950, Nifty 1,930, Nifty 1,970 and Nifty 1,850.

(Active futures, calls and puts are as per contract value and of the December series unless mentioned otherwise).

 Select bank and tech stocks registered gains today. PNB advanced 5% (Rs 17) to Rs 348. Oriental Bank, BoB and Andhra Bank were up nearly 3% each at Rs 300 (up Rs 8), Rs 194 (up Rs 5) and Rs 70 (up Rs 2), respectively. Indian Overseas Bank, Union Bank, J&K Bank and Kotak Bank also ended with steady gains. UTI Bank, however, declined 2.32% to Rs 166.

i-flex added 3.21% to Rs 576. TCS, which touched a high of Rs 1,287, closed with a gain of 2.53% (Rs 31) at Rs 1,275. HCL Infosys, Hexaware and Mphasis were up 2% each at Rs 798 (up Rs 17), Rs 556 (up Rs 12) and Rs 285 (up Rs 5), respectively. Moser, however, lost 2.28% (Rs 5) to Rs 234.

Metal and media stocks ended with losses. LLoyds Steel slumped 7.18% to Rs 13. PSL, Man Industries, Kalyani Steel and Mukand Steel were down nearly 5% each at Rs 154 (Rs 8), Rs 90 (Rs 4), Rs 87 (Rs 4) and Rs 40 (Rs 2), respectively. While Hind Zinc declined 4.35% to Rs 121, Ispat was down 4.33% at Rs 17.

NDTV lost 3% (Rs 4) to Rs 118. While TV 18 dipped 2.15% to Rs 166, TV Today declined 1.49% to Rs 89. Balaji Tele also ended weak at Rs 94 - down 1.41%.

 Oil PSUs, too, displayed weak trends. BPCL shed 4% (Rs 16) to Rs 392. IOC at Rs 441 (down Rs 12 or 2.66%) and Bongaigaon Refinery (down Rs 2 or 2.54%) also ended at lower levels. Kochi Refineries and MRPL were down a per cent each at Rs 207 and Rs 45, respectively. Gail, however, was up nearly 2% at Rs 217.