Sensex soars 87 pts, Reliance leads rally

The Sensex, which opened with a positive gap of 14 points at 7,683, soon breached the 7,700 mark and appreciated further on steady-to-firm buying in most counters.

While the market was extremely bullish through the noon trades, the Sensex zoomed past the 7,750-mark to touch a new, all-time intra-day high of 7,763 towards the end on steep rallies in select heavyweights, tech and other old economy stocks.

The Sensex finally ended the session with a strong gain of 87 points at 7,756.

While 23 Sensex stocks advanced, five declined and two ended unchanged today. Advancing shares accounted for a volume of 1.64 crore amounting to Rs 920.28 crore, and declining shares registered a volume of 27 lakh for Rs 78.57 crore.

The market breadth was positive with gainers outpacing losers in the ratio of 2.2:1. Of 2,561 shares traded, 1,726 advanced, 774 declined and 61 remained unchanged.

Among the sectoral indices, the BSE CD index advanced 5.11% to 2,470 followed by the BSE Oil&Gas index (up 4.12% to 3,700), BSE IT index (up 2.13% to 2,871) and BSE PSU index (up 1.95% to 4,711).

Reliance was the star attraction of the day, and soared 4.78% (Rs 34) to Rs 742. While ONGC bounced from lows and added 1.17% (Rs 11) to Rs 957, Reliance Energy moved up 2.14% (Rs 13) to Rs 644. HLL, however, shed 1.61% (Rs 3) to Rs 171.

Infosys rose 1.69% (Rs 38) to Rs 2,300. While TCS surged 3.10% (Rs 39) to Rs 1,291, Satyam jumped 2% (Rs 11) to Rs 525.

SBI moved up 1.86% (Rs 15) to Rs 804. While ICICI Bank tumbled 2.48% (Rs 13) to Rs 520, HDFC Bank lost a per cent (Rs 6) to Rs 669.

Tata Motors shot up 5.22% (Rs 26) to Rs 527. While Bajaj, after a mixed outing, gained 1.35% (Rs 20) to Rs 1,467, Maruti was up a per cent (Rs 5) at Rs 498.

Hindalco (up Rs 25 or 1.97% to Rs 1,290), BHEL (up Rs 21 or 2.13% to Rs 1,014), Tisco (up Rs 9 or 2.47% to Rs 373) and Tata Power (up Rs 6 or 1.39% to Rs 409) notched up significant gains.

Dr. Reddy's advanced 2% (Rs 17) to Rs 846, and Cipla was up a per cent (Rs 3) at Rs 338. Ranbaxy, however, declined 1.39% (Rs 7) to Rs 508.

Oil & gas stocks shot up significantly today. MRPL soared 9.60% (Rs 5) to Rs 56, and Kochi Refineries gained 8.30% (Rs 13) to Rs 165. Chennai Petro, Gail, Aban Loyd, IOC, Bongaigaon Refinery, HPCL, BPCL, Petronet LNG and Gujarat Gas ended higher in the range of 2-6% each.

Tech stocks, too, logged strong gains. SSI jumped 8.50% (Rs 4) to Rs 51. While i-flex advanced 8.24% (up Rs 68) to Rs 896, HCL Tech moved up 7.37% (Rs 30) to Rs 430. Visualsoft, Mphasis, KPIT Cummins, HCL Infosys and Aztech Software added 2-5% gains.

Reliance led the value chart with a turnover of Rs 291 crore followed by Reliance Capital (Rs 241 crore) and SRF (Rs 128 crore).