Sensex up 134 pts, Ingersoll-Rand zooms 20%

The Sensex resumed firmly above the 7,600-mark at 7,616 - up 21 points over its previous close of 7,595. The market continued to be firm in the first half,  and witnessed a sharp upsurge towards the closing bell. Across-the-board buying saw the index zoom above the 7,700 levels to an intra-day high of 7,741 - up 125 points over the day's low of 7,616.

The Sensex finally closed the session with a gain of 1.77% (134 points) at 7,729.

While 25 Sensex stocks advanced, five declined today. Advancing shares accounted for a volume of 1.12 crore amounting to Rs 645 crore, and declining shares registered a volume of 29 lakh for Rs 51 crore.

The market breadth was extremely positive with gainers outpacing losers in the ratio of 3.7:1. Out of 2,620 scrips traded on the BSE, 2,024 advanced, 543 declined and 53 were unchanged today.

All the sectoral indices finished with gains today. The BSE Metal index rose 2.98% (up 183 pts) to 6,335, and the BSE Teck index was up 2.89% to 1,996.  The BSE Bankex was up over 2% to 4,599, and the BSE Consumer Durables index was up 2% to 2,406.

Satyam zoomed 5.36% (Rs 27) to Rs 524. While Infosys soared 2.28% (Rs 52) to Rs 2,315, TCS advanced 2.22% (Rs 28) to Rs 1,313. Wipro was up 1.49% (Rs 11) at Rs 727.

Reliance advanced 1.69% (Rs 12) to Rs 719, and ITC moved up 2% (Rs 35) to Rs 1,737.

SBI flared up 4% (Rs 32) to Rs 808. While ICICI Bank jumped 2.18% (Rs 10) to Rs 493, HDFC Bank was up a per cent (Rs 6) at Rs 660.

While Hero Honda scaled up 3.47% (Rs 21) to Rs 629, Tata Motors moved up 2% (Rs 10) to Rs 481. Bajaj dropped 1.65% (Rs 24) to Rs 1,412, and Maruti lost 1.35% (Rs 7) to Rs 479.

Bharti soared 4.21% (Rs 12) to Rs 303. HDFC at Rs 915 (up Rs 19 or 2.14%), Hindalco at Rs 1,368 (up Rs 28 or 2%), Tata Power at Rs 425 (up Rs 13 or 3.16%) and Tisco at Rs 398 (up Rs 10 or 2.59%) also rallied sharply today.

Metal scrips logged significant gains. Monnet Ispat shot up 10.23% (Rs 15) to Rs 160. While Lloyd Steel advanced 9.77% to Rs 17, Souther Iron & Steel gained 8% to Rs 24. Gujarat NRE Coke, Jindal Steel, Madras Aluminium, SAIL and Maharashtra Seamless moved up in a range of 5-8%.

Ingersoll- Rand was locked at its 20% upper limit at Rs 315 - a gain of Rs 56 - after the announcement of an EGM to clear a proposal to delist the shares from BSE and NSE.

Munjal Auto zoomed 20% to Rs 201 (up Rs 33) after the company board cleared a proposal to split operations and form a new company.

South Indian Bank gained 13% (Rs 10) to Rs 82, and the counter logged a huge volume of 27 lakh shares as against the two-week average of 3.24 lakh shares.

Union Bank declined over 4% to Rs 134. Jet dropped 2% to Rs 1,160.

Amforge Industries, which had zoomed 25% in two sessions, declined 3% to Rs 226.

Vasishti Detergents, which had gained close to 9% after the news of the proposed merger with HLL yesterday, was down 3% at Rs 16.

G V Films topped the volume chart with trades in over 2.68 crore shares followed by HFCL (1.58 crore), Zigma Software (1.08 crore), IFSL (82 lakh) and SAIL (75 lakh).

Reliance Capital was the most active counter with a turnover of Rs 240 crore followed by Reliance (Rs 164 crore), SBI (Rs 78 crore), VSNL (Rs 76 crore) and Gujarat NRE Coke (Rs 75 crore).