Sensex up 135pts; gains 600pts in 6 sessions

Continued bouyancy in the market, coupled with strong overseas trends, saw the Sensex open with a huge positive gap of 71 points at 11,384.
All-round buying saw the index rally past the 11,500-mark to touch a high of 11,508.

Some profit-taking, however, towards the closing bell saw the index pare som gains and settle at 11,448 - up 135 points. The index has gained almost 6% (636 points) in the last six trading sessions.

The BSE Bankex and PSU indices gained 2.5% each today to close at 5172 and 5492, respectively. The BSE Metal index added 1.5% to 8378.
While the Mid-cap index spurted 1.2% to 4781, the Small-cap index surged 1.7% to 5801.

The market breadth was fairly positive - out of 2,578 stocks traded, 1,804 advanced, 720 declined and the rest were unchanged today.

INDEX MOVERS & SHAKERS

HDFC Bank rallied 5% to Rs 846. Hero Honda and Larsen & Toubro gained 3.4% each to Rs 705 and Rs 2,382, respectively.

BHEL moved up 3% to Rs 2,245. Ranbaxy added 2.7% to Rs 403.

ONGC, ICICI Bank, Tata Motors and Reliance Communications advanced around 2% each to Rs 1,239, Rs 589, Rs 817 and Rs 285, respectively.

SBI added 1.7% to Rs 887. Reliance, Satyam, Hindalco, HLL and Maruti were up around 1.5% each at Rs 1,045, Rs 786, Rs 169, Rs 230 and Rs 813, respectively.

Cipla and Bajaj Auto dropped over 1.5% each to Rs 246 and Rs 2,741, respectively.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

Mahindra Gesco topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 187.68 crore followed by Reliance (Rs 128.64 crore), Bombay Dyeing (Rs 104.74 crore), Hindustan Zinc (Rs 87.46 crore) and Century Textiles (Rs 57.81 crore).

LML led the volume chart with trades of around 1.61 crore shares followed by Harig Cranks (1.58 crore), SpiceJet (47.46 lakh), IFCI (46.29 lakh) and Himachal Futuristic (41.43 lakh).