Sensex zooms past 12k

Reliance Industries powers rally, sniffs Rs 1,000-mark.

With frenzied buying on the Reliance and metal counters, the 30-stock BSE Sensex crossed the 12,000-mark today. The last 1,000-point lap came in just 19 trading sessions.

Reliance Industries, which has a 10.36 per cent weight in the Sensex, was clearly the star of the show, accounting for a quarter of the latest 1,000 point rally. Infosys and Tata Steel contributed 113 points each and ITC 85 points.

The inflow from foreign institutional investors during the 1000-point run was $170.4 million, far behind domestic mutual funds' net buying worth Rs 3,400 crore (over $750 million). The FIIs remained net sellers to the tune of Rs 20.38 crore today.

After four failed intra-day attempts, the index finally managed to cross the 12,000-mark towards the end of trade today. It ended at 12,039.55, up 143.57 points, or 1.21 per cent, after hitting a all-time high of 12,053.74.

The 50-stock Nifty, powered by the Reliance and IPCL stocks, gained a little more than a per cent to end at 3,573.50 after touching its all-time high of 3,578.35. On the Nifty, too, the top gainer for the day was RIL, followed closely by MTNL and metal stocks.

On days when the benchmark index had pierced the last three landmarks "" 9,000, 10,000 and 11,000 "" the Sensex had failed to hold on to gains and close above the new peaks conquered.

On the last occasion, when it crossed the 11,000 mark on March 20, the index retreated sharply and ended 112 points off its intra-day peak (11,017) at 10,905.

Reliance ruled Dalal Street today. The stock touched a all-time high of Rs 999.95 before closing with a sharp gain of 8 per cent (Rs 74) at Rs 995. The counter clocked a volume of around 6.13 million shares. Tata Steel rallied 5.8 per cent to Rs 644 and Hindalco surged 5.6 per cent to Rs 215.55.

The breadth in both the overall market as well as on the Nifty was positive with winners outnumbering losers on the NSE index by four. On the BSE, nearly 53 per cent of the stocks advanced while the ratio remained around 55 per cent for the other indices as well.

The biggest loser on the Sensex was NTPC, which fell 2.5 per cent, followed by HDFC with a 2 per cent drop. Except for Sun Pharma, which lost 3.24 per cent, all the other 22 losers on the Nifty were able to confine their losses to less than 2 per cent.

The biggest sector to have made gains today was of metals, whose index on the BSE went up by 3.8 per cent. Thanks to the RIL rise, the BSE Oil and Gas Index, in which it has more than 54 per cent weight, too, went up by more than 4.4 per cent.

Bajaj Auto and Maurti advanced over 1 per cent each to Rs 2,980 and Rs 881, respectively. Late buying at the Satyam counter saw the stock spurt over 2 per cent to Rs 872; Grasim added nearly 2 per cent to Rs 2,352 and ITC gained 1.4 per cent to Rs 201.

The total market turnover recorded was Rs 54,186.86 crore. The NSE cash turnover was Rs 9,708.73 crore and F&O turnover was Rs 39,446.2 crore, the BSE cash turnover was at Rs 5,031.93 crore.