Sensex bounce back sharply, zooms 134 pts

After reporting three straight losses, the market today bounced back sharply on the back of sharp appreciation in majority of the sectors.

The Sensex in the opening bell resumed firm above the 7,600-mark at 7,616 - up 21 points over its previous close of 7,595. While buoyancy in the market continued in the first half, the Sensex witnessed a sharp upsurge towards the closing bell. Across-the-board buying support propeled the index above the 7,700 levels to an intra-day high of 7,741 - up 125 points over the day's low of 7,616.

The Sensex finally closed the session with a huge surge of 134 points or 1.77% at 7,729.

While 25 Sensex stocks advanced, five declined today. Advancing shares accounted for a volume of 1.12 crore amounting to Rs 644.65 crore, and declining shares registered a volume of 29 lakh for Rs 51.37 crore.

The market breadth was extremely positive, with gainers outpacing losers in the ratio of 3.6:1. Of 2,619 scrips traded on the BSE - 2,017 advanced, 548 declined and 54 ended unchanged today.

Among the sectoral indices, the BSE Metal index rose 2.98% (up 183 pts) to 6,335, BSE Teck index up 2.89% to 1,996, BSE IT index up 2.79% to 2,912, BSE Bankex index 2.17% to 4,599 and BSE CD index up 2% to 2,406.

Tech stocks, too, reported strong gains. Crest Animation surged 9.38% (Rs 16) to Rs 191, and TV18 jumped 7.19% to Rs 386. i-flex, NDTV, Mphasis, TV Today and VSNL were up 3-7%.

Satyam notched up 5.36% gains (Rs 27) to Rs 524. While Infosys soared 2.28% (Rs 52) to Rs 2,315, TCS advanced 2.22% (Rs 28) to Rs 1,313. Wipro was up 1.49% (Rs 11) at Rs 727.

Reliance advanced 1.69% (Rs 12) to Rs 719, while ITC moved up 2% (Rs 35) to Rs 1,737.

SBI flared up 4% (Rs 32) to Rs 808. While ICICI Bank jumped 2.18% (Rs 10) to Rs 493, HDFC Bank was up a per cent (Rs 6) at Rs 660.

Hero Honda scaled up 3.47% (Rs 21) to Rs 629, while Tata Motors moved up 2% (Rs 10) to Rs 481. Bajaj dropped 1.65% (Rs 24) to Rs 1,412, and Maruti lost 1.35% (Rs 7) to Rs 479.

Bharti soared 4.21% (Rs 12) to Rs 303. HDFC at Rs 915 (up Rs 19 or 2.14%), Hindalco at Rs 1,368 (up Rs 28 or 2%), Tata Power at Rs 425 (up Rs 13 or 3.16%) and Tisco at Rs 398 (up Rs 10 or 2.59%) rallied sharply.

Metal scrips logged significant gains. Monnet Ispat shot up 10.23% (Rs 15) to Rs 160. While Lloyd Steel advanced 9.77% to Rs 17, Souther Iron & Steel gained 8% to Rs 24. Gujarat NRE Coke, Jindal Steel, Madras Aluminium, SAIL and Maharashtra Seamless moved up in a range of 5-8%.

Reliance Capital led the value chart with a turnover of Rs 240 crore, followed by Reliance (Rs 163 crore), SBI (Rs 78 crore) and VSNL (Rs 75 crore), respectively.