Sensex rallies 136pts; UWB tanks 15%

The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 46 points at 11,824, and then did not bother to look back. Unabated buying in the market saw the index rally to a high of 11,940.

Some profit taking towards the close saw the index pare some gains and settle at 11,914, up 136 points.

The BSE Midcap index surged 2% to 4940, and the Smallcap index gained 1.3% at 5888.

The BSE Auto and IT indices rallied nearly 2% each to 5143 and 4365, respectively. The Bankex, PSU and Oil & Gas indices advanced over 1% each to 5445, 5622 and 5755, respectively.

INDEX MOVERS & SHAKERS

Tata Motors zoomed 4% to Rs 897. Maruti rallied over 3% to Rs 903, and Bajaj Auto moved up 1.5% to Rs 2,833. Hero Honda, however, slipped over 1% to Rs 719.

Infosys and TCS advanced 2% each to Rs 1,848 and Rs 1,018, respectively. Satyam spurted 1.3% to Rs 810, and Wipro was up 1% at Rs 523.

Larsen & Toubro gained 2.3% at Rs 2,484. ICICI Bank surged 2% to Rs 621.

HLL moved up nearly 2% to Rs 243. Reliance Energy, Bharti Airtel and Grasim were the other prominent gainers.

RACE FOR UWB

Following RBI's moratorium order on United Western Bank (UWB) a host of banks announced their intentions to acquire UWB.

UWB today witnessed brisk trading activity. The stock plunged to a low of Rs 10 in early trades as against its previous close of Rs 22.55, and then recovered sharply towards the close to end at Rs 16.15, still down 15.5%. The counter clocked a huge volume of around 2.25 crore shares compared to its 2-week average daily traded volume of around 15,500 odd shares.

Apart from ICICI Bank, which closed up 2%, Federal Bank, Andhra Bank and Canara Bank are also in the race for acquiring UWB. Federal Bank zoomed 5.3% to Rs 209. Canara Bank rallied 3.5% to Rs 235. Andhra Bank, however, closed flat at Rs 88.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

Zee topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 196.40 crore followed by Reliance Capital (Rs 104 crore), Reliance Industries (Rs 89.50 crore), Bombay Dyeing (Rs 70.50 crore) and Mahindra Gesco (Rs 61.65 crore).

United Western Bank led the volume chart with trades of around 2.25 crore shares followed by Zee (64.82 lakh), Balrampur Chini (31.06 lakh), G V Films (26.85 lakh) and Essar Oil (26 lakh).