Another record close, Sensex gains 92pts

The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 12 points at 12,231. The first one-hour of the trading saw extreme volatility. The index at first gained over 100 points, then tumbled down into the negative zone to touch a low of 12,134.

The index, thereafter, recovered and displayed range-bound movement with a positive bias before surging to a new all-time intra-day high of 12,337 - up 203 points from the day's low.

The Sensex finally closed with a gain of 92 points at a new all-time high of 12,311.

The BSE Bankex rallied over 3% to 5,628. The Auto, IT and PSU indices were up nearly 1% each at 5,657, 4,068 and 6,280, respectively. On the other hand, the Metal index dropped nearly 1% to 11,037.

The market breadth was positive - out of 2,605 stocks traded, 1,457 advanced, 1,085 declined and the rest were unchanged today.

INDEX MOVERS & SHAKERS

ICICI Bank advanced 4.3% to Rs 649. SBI rallied 2.6% to Rs 961, and HDFC Bank moved up 1.3% to Rs 862.

Bharti Tele surged 3.7% to Rs 424. Satyam spurted 2.6% to Rs 772.

Gujarat Ambuja soared over 3% to Rs 126. Maruti zoomed 2.3% to Rs 963. Hero Honda gained 1.8% at Rs 845.

Tata Power added 1.6% to Rs 558. Cipla moved up 1.2% to Rs 266.

Hindalco dropped 2% to Rs 231, and Tata Steel slipped almost 1% to Rs 665.

Dr.Reddy's shed 1.8% to Rs 1,652, and Ranbaxy slipped 1.5% to Rs 514.

Larsen & Toubro and Grasim also ended with substantial losses at Rs 2,683 and Rs 2,432, respectively.

OTHER GAINERS & LOSERS

Adani Exports hit the 20% upper limit at Rs 88. Ind-Swift, Aftek Infosys, Sree Sakthi, Jindal Drilling, GMR Industries, Ceat and Himachal Futuristic also hit their respective 20% upper circuits today.

Henkel India, Phoenix Lamp, Bhushan Steel, State Bank of Mysore, Coral Labs, Rane Brakes, Mid-day, GTL, Syndicate Bank, Mirc Electronics, Ispat Industries, Raymond, Reliance Communication Ventures, HCL Infosys, Apollo Tyre and VSNL were the other major gainers.

Mahindra Gesco and Tantian Constructions slumped 8.5% each to Rs 788 and Rs 263, respectively. FCS Software, Samtel Colour, Kesoram Industries, Thomas Cook, Titanor, Alstom Projects, Birla Corporation, Century Textiles, Bombay Dyeing and Tata Elxsi were the other prominent losers today.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

Reliance Communication Ventures (RCoVL) topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 238.61 crore followed by Century Textiles (Rs 175.39 crore), Reliance Capital (Rs 147.82 crore), Lupin (Rs 140.17 crore) and SBI (Rs 118.14 crore).

Himachal Futuristic led the volume chart with trades of around 2.20 crore shares followed by Reliance Natural Resources (1.07 crore), G V Films (87.40 lakh), RCoVL (71.60 lakh) and RCF (71.43 lakh).