Sensex ends past 6,750-mark, up 93 pts

The market displayed a cautious trend in early trades. After opening nine points higher over its previous close at 6,665, the index soon faltered under selective selling pressure to dip to a low of 6,648.

While the market quickly rolled back into the green, steady rise in select scrips saw the index breach the 6,700-mark in early noon trades.

With the rally gathering steam in afternoon trades, the sentiment turned extremely bullish towards the fag-end as frenzied buying across-the-board lifted the index above the 6,750-mark to an intra-day high of 6,761 - up 113 points from the day's low.

The Sensex, which dropped over 70 pts in yesterday's trades, finally settled with a strong surge of 93 points at 6,749. The Nifty, too, ended on a buoyant note at 2,094 - up 29 points over its last close.

While 23 Sensex stocks advanced, seven declined today. Advancing shares clocked a volume of 1.07 crore amounting to Rs 592.21 crore, and declining shares accounted for a volume of 15 lakh for Rs 38.19 crore.

The market breadth was extremely positive. Of 2,043 shares traded on the BSE - 1,474 advanced, 517 declined and 52 stocks ended unchanged.

Reliance, on volumes of over 37.11 lakh, attracted considerable buying support and flared up 4.38% (Rs 23) to Rs 553. ITC rose 1.39% (Rs 22) to Rs 1,582, and ONGC gained 1.39% (Rs 13) to Rs 937.

Infosys scaled up 2.61% (Rs 58) to Rs 2,259. Wipro shot up 3.10% (Rs 22) to Rs 722, while Satyam surged 2.46% (Rs 11) to Rs 462.

SBI clocked a per cent gain (Rs 7) to Rs 662, and HDFC Bank gained 1.45% (Rs 8) to Rs 547. ICICI Bank was marginally up at Rs 394. Over 7.62 lakh SBI shares changed hands on the BSE.

L&T, which bagged orders from NHAI, spurted 2.43% (Rs 26) to Rs 1,111. Reliance Energy jumped 3.26% (Rs 17) to Rs 530, and Hindalco added 1.35% (Rs 15) to Rs 1,094. Zee soared nearly 5% (Rs 7) to Rs 148.

Bajaj and Maruti were up a per cent each at Rs 1,275 (up Rs 12) and Rs 454 (up Rs 4), respectively.

Ranbaxy logged 1.47% gains (Rs 16) to Rs 1,100, while Dr. Reddy's slipped a per cent (Rs 5) to Rs 731.

Grasim and Gujarat Ambuja were down a per cent each at Rs 1,102 and Rs 444, respectively. ACC, however, ended with a rupee gain at Rs 373.

Health care stocks notched up significant gains. Neuland Labs hit the upper limit of 20% (Rs 31) at Rs 185. Aarti Drugs soared 9.55% (Rs 11) to Rs 124, and Aurobindo Pharma advanced 9.54% (Rs 29) to Rs 330. Suven Life, Wockhardt, Kopran, Natco Pharma, Alembic, Matrix Labs and Cadila were up in a range of 2-6%. Strides Acrolab, however, dropped 5.12% (Rs 15) to Rs 282.

Select tech stocks lapped up gains. Mphasis firmed up nearly 3% (Rs 8) to Rs 269, and Moser Baer gained 2.75% (Rs 6) to Rs 222. While i-flex rose 2% (Rs 14) to Rs 724, TCS moved up 1.89% (Rs 24) to Rs 1,292.

Among the sectoral indices BSE IT index rose 2.38% (up 64 pts to 2,753) followed by BSE Oil & Gas index (up 2.28% to 3,154), BSE Teck index (up 2.20% to 1,784) and BSE CD index (up 1.18% to 1,903), respectively.