The Sensex opened with a strong gain of 35 points at 6,170, and exhibited a fluctuating trend during intra-day trades today. After edging past the 6,200-mark in early trades, the Sensex witnessed a steady decline from higher levels amid profit-taking and touched a low of 6,151 (up 16 pts over the previous close) in mid-morning trades.Though the market recovered from lows, it saw another short slump in mid-noon trades due to selling pressure in select counters.The sentiment turned bullish towards the closing bell again as buying across-the-board saw the index spurt to an intra-day high of 6,259.The Sensex finally closed with a gain of 109 points (1.77%) at 6,244 points. Reliance advanced 3.13% (Rs 16) to Rs 530. While ONGC gained 1.80% (Rs 15) to Rs 856, HLL was up 2.74% (Rs 3) at Rs 131. ITC ended on a flat note at Rs 1,371 - up Rs 2.Hero Honda surged 5.77% (Rs 28) to Rs 515. While Tata Motors shot up 4% (Rs 17) to Rs 433, Maruti soared 3.89% (Rs 16) to Rs 429. Bajaj rose 1.80% (Rs 19) to Rs 1,082.Tata Power spurted 5% (Rs 17) to Rs 354. While Tisco surged 4.74% (Rs 16) to Rs 363, Zee moved up 3% (Rs 4) to Rs 134.Wipro advanced 3% (Rs 19) to Rs 595. Infosys logged 1.76% gains (Rs 34) to Rs 1,948, and Satyam was up 2.60% (Rs 10) at Rs 377.HDFC Bank gained 3% (Rs 14) to Rs 545. While SBI clocked a per cent gain (Rs 5) to Rs 621, ICICI Bank ended marginally weak at Rs 384.Grasim moved up 1.66% (Rs 20) to Rs 1,203. While ACC gained 1.61% (Rs 6) to Rs 372, Gujarat Ambuja ended with a steady gain of 1.35% (Rs 6) at Rs 425. Cipla added 1.95% (Rs 5) to Rs 238, and Dr. Reddy's was up a per cent (Rs 6) at Rs 694. Ranbaxy climbed 1.31% (Rs 12) to Rs 954.Tech scrips continued to be weak today. TCS, which had declined 8% yesterday, dropped another 8% (Rs 94) to Rs 1,116. CMC slipped 6% (Rs 33) to Rs 489. Hexaware, HCL Infosys, Flextronics and Mphasis also lost ground.Tata Elxsi, which reported a 50% increase in FY05 net, moved up 4% to Rs 177.BEML zoomed 14% (Rs 76) to Rs 624.Metal scrips logged gains today. Jindal Saw Pipes was up 6% at Rs 207. Hindustan Zinc advanced 5% to Rs 163. Nalco was up 4% at Rs 158. SAIL, Sterlite, Sesa Goa, JVSL and Ispat Industries also closed at higher levels.All sectoral indices closed with gains today. The BSE Metal Index was up 2.96% (168 points) to 5,677. The BSE Auto Index moved up 2.7% (69 points) to 2,546 points.It was a close finish today - out of 2,361 scrips traded, 1,229 declined, 1,043 advanced and 89 were unchanged today.SAIL topped the volume chart with trades in over 80 lakh shares followed by Ispat (66 lakh shares) and Tata Steel (41 lakh shares).TCS was the most active counter with a turnover of Rs 310 crore followed by Tata Steel (Rs 145 crore) and SBI (Rs 105 crore).
