PULL-BACK RALLY - Sensex gains 341pts

The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 109 points at 10,591. After moving a notch higher, the index soon plunged to a low of 10,185 - down 297 points from the previous close.

Bargain hunting at lower levels saw the index recover and rebound into positive zone in late morning deals. The index, thereafter, swung in and out till late noon deals.

A fresh round of buying in the last session saw the index zoom to a high of 10,859 - up 674 points from the day's low.

The Sensex finally snapped its three-day losing streak and finished with a gain 3.2% (341 points) at 10,823.

The BSE Metal index soared over 7% to 8,683. The Consumer Durables index surged 5% to 2,970. The Capital Goods and Oil & Gas indices rallied 4% each to 7,634 and 5,273, respectively.

While the BSE Mid-cap index gained 3% at 5,103, the Small-cap index moved up 2.3% to 6,480.

The market breadth turned positive towards the end of the day. Out of 2,460 stocks traded, 1,424 advanced, 985 declined and 51 were unchanged today.

While 390 stocks hit their respective lower circuits, 174 touched their respective upper limits today.

INDEX MOVERS & SHAKERS

Grasim zoomed 9% to Rs 1,917. Gujarat Ambuja surged 5% to Rs 96, and ACC added 3% to Rs 751.

Tata Power soared 8% to Rs 550. Reliance Energy rallied 6.3% to Rs 549, and NTPC added 4.8% to Rs 117.

Tata Steel surged nearly 8% to Rs 510, and Hindalco moved up 6.3% to Rs 191.

Wipro advanced 7.5% to Rs 473. Infosys added 3.3% to Rs 2,921. Satyam and TCS were up around 2% each at Rs 685 and Rs 1,824, respectively.

BHEL rallied 6.3% to Rs 2,013. Bharti Tele gained over 2% at Rs 369.

Maruti zoomed 6% to Rs 803. Bajaj Auto gained 3.7% at Rs 2,981, and Tata Motors moved up 2.5% to Rs 781. Hero Honda slipped 2.7% to Rs 793.

Reliance added 4% to Rs 969. ONGC moved up 1.8% to Rs 1,237.

While ITC surged 4% to Rs 179, HLL ended flat at Rs 239.

Ranbaxy gained 3.5% at Rs 446. Dr.Reddy's dropped 1.4% to Rs 1,421.

ICICI Bank advanced over 3% to Rs 571. HDFC moved up 2.5% to Rs 1,242.

OTHER GAINERS & LOSERS

National Fertilisers zoomed almost 20% to Rs 41.20. KRBL, Dil, Advik Labs, Lloyd Steel, Mukand, Powersoft, PCS Tech, Pudumjee and R Systems gained around 20% each.

Finolex Cables soared over 18% to Rs 376. SAIL, Geometric Software, Nicholas Piramal, Sterlite Optical, Siemens, India Cements, Indian Overseas and Punj Lloyd were the other significant gainers today.

Rei Agro plunged over 9% to Rs 119. Rane Engineering, Voltas, BSEL Infrastructure, Mirza Tanners, Kirloskar Oil, State Bank of Mysore, Sintex, Ansal Infrastructure, Adani Exports, ING Vysya Bank, United Phosphorous and Apollo Hospitals were the other major losers today.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

Reliance topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 309.14 crore followed by Tata Steel (Rs 106.09 crore), Infosys (Rs 104.44 crore), Mahindra Gesco (Rs 96.17 crore) and Indiabulls (Rs 85 crore).

NTPC led the volume chart with trades of around 66.80 lakh shares followed by Ashok Leyland (61.95 lakh), Reliance Petro (60 lakh), IFCI (51.14 lakh) and SAIL (44.46 lakh).