Sensex surges 87 pts, pharma stocks sizzle

Riding on the back of yesterday's 134-point rally, the Sensex today opened 19 points higher over its last close at 7,749. The markets advanced further in early trades before profit-taking, coupled with selective selling pressure, saw the index slip from higher levels to touch an intra-day low of 7,727.

While the markets recovered soon from its short stint in negative territory, the Sensex, on the back of unprecedented buying in most of the sectors zoomed past the 7,800-mark to touch the day's high of 7,842 - up 115 points over the day's low - towards the closing bell.

The Sensex, however, pared some gains towards the fag-end, but still ended firmly above the 7,800-mark at 7,817 - up 87 points.

HLL flared up 4.67% (Rs 8) to Rs 169.

Dr. Reddy's, Ranbaxy and Cipla soared over 4% each at Rs 844 (up Rs 34), Rs 521 (up Rs 21) and Rs 336 (up Rs 14), respectively.

While ICICI Bank jumped 2.40% (Rs 12) to Rs 505, SBI was up 1.15% (Rs 9) at Rs 817. HDFC Bank, however, slipped a per cent (Rs 4) to Rs 656.

Hero Honda moved up 3.30% (Rs 21) to Rs 647, and Tata Motors advanced 3.28% (Rs 16) to Rs 497.

Grasim shot up 3.83% (Rs 50) to Rs 1,346, and ACC rose 1.66% (Rs 7) to Rs 442.

HDFC scaled up 4.15% (Rs 38) to Rs 948. While Bharti jumped 2.41% (Rs 7) to Rs 311, L&T added 1.61% (Rs 21) to Rs 1,341.

Wipro at Rs 733 (up Rs 6 to Rs 733) and Satyam at Rs 532 (up Rs 7 or 1.43%) ended with steady gains. While Infosys dropped a per cent (Rs 24) to Rs 2,291, TCS was marginally down at Rs 1,312.

ITC lost a per cent (Rs 12) to Rs 1,724. ONGC (down Rs 3 to Rs 953) and Reliance (down Rs 2 to Rs 717) also ended at lower levels.