Sensex soars 176pts; Dr.Reddy's zooms 18%

The Sensex opened with a huge positive gap of 61 points at 12,104. Fresh buying in morning trades saw the index rally over 240 points.

The index, thereafter, displayed range-bound movement before touching a new all-time intra-day high of 12,289 - up 246 points. Some profit taking towards the close saw the index pare some gains and finally settle with a gain of 1.5% (176 points) at a record 12,219.

The Bankex and Healthcare indices soared 4% each to 5,460 and 4,049. The Metal index surged 3.4% to 11,125 and the FMCG index added nearly 2% to 2,355.

The market breadth was fairly positive - out of 2,583 stocks traded, 1,632 advanced, 890 declined and 61 were unchanged today.

INDEX MOVERS & SHAKERS

Pharma major Dr.Reddy's was the major gainer today. The stock zoomed 17.5% to Rs 1,682. Ranbaxy soared 10.5% to Rs 522. Cipla spurted nearly 1% to Rs 263.

ICICI Bank advanced 5.4% to Rs 622, and HDFC Bank added nearly 3% to Rs 850. SBI was up 2.6% at Rs 937.

Hindalco surged 5% to Rs 236, and Tata Steel rallied 4% to Rs 671.

Bajaj Auto zoomed over 3% to Rs 3,110. Maruti gained nearly 2% at Rs 942.

While ITC moved up 1.8% to Rs 207, HLL added 1.6% to Rs 293.

ONGC and Reliance were up 1% each at Rs 1,322 and Rs 1,031, respectively.

Late selling at the cement counter saw them finish with significant losses today. ACC plunged 2.4% to Rs 989. Grasim dropped nearly 2% to Rs 2,470, and Gujarat Ambuja was down 1.7% at Rs 122.

Hero Honda slipped 1.7% to Rs 831. NTPC declined 1% to Rs 135.

OTHER GAINERS & LOSERS

Adani Exports hit the 20% upper limit at Rs 73.25. Flex Industries, Flex Engineers, Titanor Corporation, Goodyear, Uniply and Sree Sakthi also hit their respective 20% upper circuits today.

Dynemic Products, ETC Network, Torrent Pharma, RCF, Zee Tele, Indian Hotels, Bank of India, Bank of Baroda and Andhra Bank were the other major gainers.

Teledate plunged 7% to Rs 17. Emkay Share, Raj Spinning, Nucleus Software, Allsec Technologies, PNCL, Shah Alloy, Esab India, GMDC, BEML, Cadila Healthcare, Raymond, Ashok Leyland, Ingersoll Rand, Proctor & Gamble and Gillette India were the other prominent losers today.

VALUE & VOLUMES TOPPERS

Reliance Communication Ventures topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 161.78 crore followed by Indiabulls (Rs 122.12 crore), ACC (Rs 103.79 crore), Tantia Constructions (Rs 98.30 crore) and Zee Tele (Rs 97.18 crore).

Himachal Futuristic led the volume chart with trades of around 1.12 crore shares followed by Ashok Leyland (71.16 lakh), Reliance Communication Ventures (50 lakh), Reliance Natural Resources (43.11 lalk) and Southern Iron & Steel (40 lakh).