Sensex ends up 74pts; cement stocks surge

The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 67 points at 14,498. Fresh buying in morning trades saw the index rally to a high of 14,537. The index, thereafter, moved in an extremely narrow band of 30-odd points (14,470 to 14,500).

Selective buying towards the end of the day saw the Sensex settle with a gain of 74 points at 14,505.

The market breadth was positive - out of 2,655 stocks traded, 1,440 advanced, 1,143 declined and 72 were unchanged today.

CONCRETE GAINS

ACC zoomed over 8% to Rs 899. Ambuja Cements soared 7.5% to Rs 125, and Grasim surged nearly 5% to Rs 2,624.

HDFC rallied 5% to Rs 1,958. SBI and Ranbaxy advanced around 1.5% each to Rs 1,470 and Rs 348, respectively.

ITC and Wipro were up 1% each at Rs 155 and Rs 515, respectively.

Bajaj Auto and ONGC slipped 1.7% each to Rs 2,094 and Rs 906, respectively.

Tata Motors and Cipla declined over 1% each to Rs 664 and Rs 203, respectively. Reliance Communications was down 1% at Rs 510.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

IFCI topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 137.50 crore followed by debutant Meghmani Organics (Rs 133 crore), Reliance (Rs 110.30 crore), SBI (Rs 108.50 crore) and Orbit Corporation (Rs 89.75 crore).

Meghmani Organics led the volume chart with trades of around 4.72 crore shares followed by IFCI (2.54 crore), Reliance Natural (1.34 crore), IKF Technologies (1.04 crore) and Reliance Petro (77.50 lakh).