Mirroring the firm trend in other Asian markets, the Sensex opened with a positive gap of 49 points at 12,905. Renewed buying ahead of the earnings season fuelled the rally today.The index zoomed to a high of 13,194 at the fag end of the session before finally settling at 13,178 - up 322 points.The Bankex, FMCG and Metal indices surged over 3% each to 6581, 1774 and 8905, respectively. The IT index was up 2.2% at 4931. The BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap indices rallied 2% each to 5420 and 6585, respectively.Gainers outpaced losers 3:1, i.e. there were more than three advancing stocks for every declining stock. Out of 2,599 stocks traded, 1,915 moved up, 613 slipped and 71 were unchanged today.SHINING STARSTata Steel soared 6% to Rs 493. ITC surged 5% to Rs 155.Maruti and Reliance Communications rallied around 4.5% each to Rs 790 and Rs 416, respectively.SBI advanced 4.3% to Rs 989. Grasim added nearly 4% to Rs 2,195.Larsen & Toubro and HDFC Bank gained around 3% each to Rs 1,597 and Rs 972, respectively.Hindalco, BHEL, ONGC and ACC were up nearly 3% each at Rs 136, Rs 2,425, Rs 867 and Rs 742, respectively.Infosys, Tata Motors, Gujarat Ambuja and Reliance Energy moved up around 2.5% each to Rs 2,044, Rs 703, Rs 109 and Rs 513, respectively.Reliance, Bharti Airtel, TCS and Wipro surged 2% each to Rs 1,384, Rs 761, Rs 1,217 and Rs 562, respectively.Bajaj Auto, down 0.5% at Rs 2,297, was the sole loser among the index stocks today.MOST ACTIVE COUNTERSTata Steel topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 133.50 crore followed by MindTree (Rs 99.85 crore), Indiabulls Real Estate (Rs 99.40 crore), IFCI (Rs 92.90 crore) and Indiabulls (Rs 91.50 crore).IFCI led the volume chart with trades of around 2.55 crore shares followed by Visu International (43.65 lakh), Reliance Natural Resources (41.50 lakh), Indiabulls Real Estate (36.35 lakh) and Reliance Petroleum (34 lakh).
