Sensex ends tad higher; L&T, ONGC shine

The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 25 points at 12,373. Fresh buying in early trades saw the index rally to a high of 12,444. Persistent selling in select index heavyweights capped the upmove.

Selective profit-taking saw the index pare gains and slip into the negative zone to touch a low of 12,305 - down 139 points from the day's high.

The index, thereafter, swung in and out of the positive zone before settling with a marginal gain of 12 points at 12,360.

The index, thus, ended higher for the third consecutive week - gaining 2.6% (317 points) during this holiday shortened week.

The market breadth was slightly positive - out of 2,596 stocks traded so far, 1,356 advanced, 1,178 declined and the rest were unchanged today.

INDEX MOVERS & SHAKERS

Larsen & Toubro rallied 3.6% to Rs 2,732. BHEL gained over 1% at Rs 2,395.

ONGC soared 3% to Rs 1,365. Reliance gained nearly 2% at 1,100.

Hero Honda zoomed 2.6% to Rs 858. Dr.Reddy's advanced 2% to Rs 1,680.

Hindalco spurted over 2% to Rs 230. ACC added 1.3% to Rs 988.

ICICI Bank dropped 3.3% to Rs 639.

HLL shed 2.7% to Rs 285. TCS slipped 1.5% to Rs 2,004, and Maruti was down 1.3% at Rs 941.

Tata Power and Tata Steel declined over 2% each to Rs 562 and Rs 641, respectively.

OTHER GAINERS & LOSERS

GMR Industries, Malwa Cotton, Shyam Telecom, BSEL Infrastructure, Supreme Petro and Surana Telecom hit the 20% upper limit each at Rs 331, Rs 175, Rs 147, Rs 71, Rs 30.65 and Rs 34, respectively.

Chowgule Steamship, Suashis Diamond, Finolex Industries, NIIT, Rain Calcining, Adani Exports, Dishman Pharma, Godavari Fertilisers, KEC Infrastructure, Color Chips, Videocon Industries, ABG Heavy, VST Industries Videocon Appliances, RCF, United Phosphorous and VSNL were the other major gainers today.

Premier slumped nearly 9% to Rs 37.30. Powersoft, Kalyani Steel, Emkay Share, Sintex, Flex Engineering, Goodyear, Maharashtra Scooters, Saksoft, Tantia Construction, Reliance Natural Resources, Aegis Logistics, Astrazencea Pharma, Apollo Tyre and Jaiprakash were the other prominent losers.

DEBUTANT'S PLAY

Debutant Plethico Pharma zoomed to a high of Rs 510 -  a premium of 70% to its issue price of Rs 300 in early trades. The stock finally closed at Rs 420 on Day One.

Another debutant Lokesh Machines zoomed over 100% in early trades to touch a high of Rs 300 as against the issue price of Rs 140. The stock settled at Rs 228.

VALUE & VOLUMES TOPPERS

Reliance topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 179.33 crore followed by two debutants Plethico Pharma (Rs 163.16 crore), Lokesh Machines (Rs 144.71 crore), Mahindra Gesco (Rs 126.99 crore) and Reliance Communication Ventures (Rs 123.23 crore).

Reliance Natural Resources led the volume chart with trades of around 1.29 crore shares followed by SAIL (90.57 lakh), Himachal Futuristic (84.63 lakh), Gujarat Ambuja (78.50 lakh) and Bella Steel (70 lakh).