Sensex up 17pts; pharma scrips shine

The Sensex opened on a weak note with a negative gap of 29 points at 7,165, and moved in and out of positive zones till late noon deals.

Buying in select scrips like ITC, L&T, ACC and Ranbaxy saw the index move up to a new intra-day high of 7,229. Profit-taking at higher levels saw the index shed gains again, and finally close with a gain of 17 points (0.24%) at 7,211.

While 20 index scrips advanced with a volume of 99 lakh shares totalling Rs 464 crore, 10 declined with a volume of 28 lakh shares for Rs 208 crore.

SBI was firm right through the session, and closed with a gain of 3.6% (Rs 25) at Rs 706. ITC moved up over a per cent (Rs 22) to Rs 1,671. HLL was up a rupee at Rs 165.

L&T zoomed 4.6% (Rs 52) to Rs 1,186. Reliance Energy was up 2.8% (Rs 18) at Rs 650.

ACC moved up nearly 2% (Rs 7) to Rs 385. Gujarat Ambuja and Grasim also closed with gains.

Bajaj gained nearly a per cent (Rs 13) to Rs 1,387. Hero Honda, Maruti and Tata Motors finished in positive zones today.

Ranbaxy was up 1.9% (Rs 20) at Rs 1,078. Cipla and Dr. Reddy's moved up today.

ONGC declined 3.7% (Rs 38) to Rs 983. Reliance dropped Rs 2 to Rs 640.

Wipro slipped 2.7% (Rs 21) to Rs 745. Infosys was down Rs 7 at Rs 2,351.

HDFC Bank dropped 2.6% (Rs 16) to Rs 618. HDFC was down 1.6% (Rs 14) to Rs 870.

The BSE Healthcare Index advanced 2.4% (67 points) to 2,852 on heavy buying in MNC pharma scrips today. The BSE Mid-Cap Index, BSE Small Cap Index, BSE Bankex, BSE Capital Goods Index, BSE FMCG Index and BSE Metal Index also closed with gains.

The mood was bullish once again - out of 2,532 scrips traded, 1,440 advanced, 1,028 declined and 64 were unchanged today.

Novartis advanced nearly 7% (Rs 34) to Rs 535. GlaxoSmithkline moved up 6% (Rs 52) to Rs 856. Pfizer was up 5% (Rs 40) at Rs 837. Wyeth and Abbott closed with gains of over 4% each.

Shringar Cinema zoomed nearly 20% (Rs 11) to Rs 64. Adlabs gained 16% (Rs 40) to Rs 280.

Reliance Capital was the most active counter with a turnover of over Rs 163 crore followed by SBI (Rs 141 crore), Tata Steel (Rs 84 crore) and Reliance (Rs 57 crore).