Sensex back above 13K, zooms 186pts

The Sensex opened marginally (16 points) higher at 13,011. Weakness in morning trades saw the index tumble to a low of 12,830 - only to bounce back sharply in late morning deals.

The first-half of the trading session saw the index move in a range of over 300 points. Agressive buying in cement, banking and telecom stocks in late noon deals saw the index rally to a high of 13,223 - up 393 points from the day's low.

The Sensex finally settled with a gain of 186 points at 13,181. In the process, the index also regained the psychological important mark of 13,000 points.

The BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap indices gained around 2% each to 5477 and 6394, respectively.

The Bankex rallied 3% to 6726. While the Healthcare index surged nearly 2% to 3599, the Auto and Oil & Gas indices advanced over 1% each to 5148 and 5869, respectively.

The market breadth was fairly positive - out of 2,565 stocks traded, 1,646 moved up, 866 slipped and the rest were unchanged today.

INDEX MOVERS & SHAKERS

Reliance Communications zoomed 7.5% (Rs 30) to Rs 433. Bharti Airtel gained nearly 4% to Rs 599.

Grasim flared up over 4% to Rs 2614. ACC rallied 3.6% to Rs 1,008, and Gujarat Ambuja gained 3% at Rs 134.

SBI advanced 4% to Rs 1,228. ICICI Bank moved up 3% to Rs 830, and HDFC Bank added over 1% to Rs 1,044.

Dr.Reddy's gained 4% at Rs 784. Reliance surged 2.5% to Rs 1,238. Tata Motors rallied 2.7% to Rs 842. Bajaj Auto, Satyam, NTPC, Reliance Energy and Larsen & Toubro also finished with gains today.

ONGC and HLL dropped 2% each to Rs 789 and Rs 219, respectively.

Tata Steel, Cipla and Hero Honda were down around 1% each at Rs 436, Rs 238 and Rs 719, respectively.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

Reliance topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 192 crore followed by Parsvnath (Rs 171 crore), Reliance Communications (Rs 163 crore), HDFC (Rs 138 crore) and Tata Steel (Rs 126 crore).

IFCI led the volume chart with trades of around 55.31 lakh shares followed by Blue Bird (44 lakh), Bellary Steel (43 lakh), Parsvnath (40 lakh) and Reliance Communications (39 lakh).