8th Up Day for Sensex; ONGC soars 4%

The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 26 points at 12,488. After soaring to a new high in early trades, the index soon plunged into the red to touch a low of 12,356  - down 106 points from the previous close.

Fresh buying thereafter saw the index recoup all its losses and rebound into positive zone. As the buying gained momentum, the index rallied to a new, all-time intra-day high of 12,546 - up 190 points from the day's low.

The Sensex finally settled with a gain of 51 points at 12,514. The index has thus gained 5.7% (679 points) in eight straight sessions.

The BSE Auto Index surged 1.7% to 5,783, and the PSU Index added 1.3% to 6,467. While the BSE Mid-cap Index moved up 0.4% to 5,985, the Small-cap Index rallied over 1% to 7,699.

The market breadth was positive - out of 2,618 stocks traded, 1,513 advanced, 1,047 declined and 58 were unchanged today.

INDEX MOVERS & SHAKERS

ONGC surged 4.4% to Rs 1,440, and became the second company to cross the Rs 2,00,000 crore market cap league following Wipro, which had done it in 2000.

Maurti surged 2.7% to Rs 965, and Tata Motors rallied 2.3% to Rs 985. Bajaj Auto gained 1.2% at Rs 3,166.

Tata Steel spurted 2.4% to Rs 660. Larsen & Toubro surged 1.8% to Rs 2,772, and Reliance Energy added 1% to Rs 629.

SBI advanced nearly 2% to Rs 975. HDFC moved up over 1% to Rs 1,356.

Dr.Reddy's tumbled over 2% to Rs 1,645. HDFC Bank and Bharti Tele slipped over 1.5% each to Rs 855 and Rs 415, respectively.

HLL, ITC and ACC shed 1% each at Rs 279, Rs 206 and Rs 1,001, respectively.

OTHER GAINERS & LOSERS

Goetze India hit the 20% upper limit at Rs 305. Surya Roshni, Punjab Alkalies & Chemicals and Bombay Burmah also hit their respective 20% upper circuits.

Mascon Global zoomed over 17% to Rs 17.18. Saint Gobian, Flex Engineering, Sun Iron Steel, Whirlpool, Ramsarup Industries, SKF India, Sun TV, India Cement, Bank of Baroda, TVS Motors, Mahindra & Mahindra, Alok Industries, FDC and Allahabad Bank were the other major gainers today.

GMR Industries slumped 10% to Rs 268. J L Morison, Tantia Construction, PTC India, Birla Ericsson, Marla Overseas, Crew BOS, Coral Labs, Madras Aluminium, Bombay Dyeing, Finolex Cables and United Phosphorous were the other prominent losers.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

ONGC topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 300.76 crore followed by Reliance (Rs 253.58 crore), Tata Motors (Rs 134.09 crore), Tata Steel (Rs 131.97 crore) and Century Textiles (Rs 100.09 crore).

Debutant Kamdhenu Ispat led the volume chart with trades of around 2.43 crore shares followed by IFCI (87.34 lakh), Mascon Global (81.27 lakh), Sun Iron Steel (75.20 lakh) and BSEL Infrastructure (66.14 lakh).