<b>RBI Effect:</b> Bank scrips rally; Sensex up 200pts

Mirroring the global trend, the Sensex opened with a huge positive gap of 137 points at 10,352. After adding on some more gains, the index displayed a range-bound movement till noon deals with dealers waiting for the RBI announcement on rate hikes.

RBI Governor Y V Reddy hiked the repo and reverse repo rate by 25 basis points while leaving the Cash Reserve Ratio and the Bank Rate unchanged, and the index slipped marginally to a low of 10,303.

However, as a 25 bps hike in rates was very much expected by the market participants, the index bounced back and rallied to a high of 10,443 before finally settling with a gain of 200 points at 10,416.

The market breadth was fairly positive - out of 2,468 stocks traded so far, 1,642 advanced, 751 declined and 75 were unchanged today.

BANK STOCKS VAULT

Banking stocks continued to hog the limelight for the second consecutive day, and the BSE Bankex advanced over 4% to 4569.

ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank rallied around 5% each to Rs 541 and Rs 764, respectively. SBI added 1% to Rs 747.

Union Bank of India and UTI Bank soared 7% each to Rs 96 and Rs 295, respectively. Allahabad Bank, Andhra Bank, Bank of Baroda, Bank of India, Canara Bank, Centurion Bank of Punjab, Federal Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, Karnataka Bank, Kotak Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Punjab National Bank and Vijaya Bank were up 3-5% each.

INDEX MOVERS & SHAKERS

Grasim soared over 6% to Rs 1,990. ACC surged nearly 4% to Rs 820, and Gujarat Ambuja added 3.4% to Rs 104.

Cipla gained 3.4% at Rs 223, and Dr.Reddy's spurted 3% to Rs 1,296.

Tata Steel and Reliance Communications advanced 3.3% to Rs 495 and Rs 248, respectively. HLL was up 2.6% at Rs 234.

NTPC, Tata Motors, Larsen & Toubro, Satyam, Maruti and Reliance Energy also finished with smart gains.

Reliance and TCS moved up 1.5% each to Rs 987 and Rs 1,846, respectively.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

Reliance topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 157.25 crore followed by Reliance Capital (Rs 135.81 crore), Satyam (Rs 115.76 crore), Tata Steel (Rs 110 crore) and Infosys (Rs 87.75 crore).

IDFC led the volume chart with trades of around 95 lakh shares followed by G V Films (77.41 lakh), Reliance Capital (33 lakh), Polaris (24.12 lakh) and Tata Steel (22.35 lakh).