Sensex up 37pts, ACC hogs limelight

Continued buoyancy in the market, backed by robust FII inflows, saw the Sensex open (yet again!) with a positive gap of 32 points at 13,501. The index touched a new all-time intra-day high of 13,588 by mid-noon deals.

Profit-taking, mainly in Infosys, saw the index pare gains and slip to 13,459 - down 129 points from the day's high.

The Sensex, however, bounced back into positive zone soon, and finished with a gain of 37 points at 13,506.

The index has thus gained 3.3% (433 points) in the last six trading sessions.

While the BSE Bankex rallied over 2% to 7212 today, the Auto index slipped 1% to 5272. Most other sectoral indices finished on a flat note.

The market breadth was fairly negative - out of 2,610 stocks traded, 1,536 declined, 1,003 advanced and the rest were unchanged today.

INDEX MOVERS & SHAKERS

ACC soared 6.7% (Rs 68) to Rs 1,087. Gujarat Ambuja was up 1% to Rs 139 after the Holcim block deal for five crore shares at around Rs 139 per share. Grasim, after touching an intra-day high of Rs 2,764, pared gains and ended marginally higher (Rs 9) at Rs 2,718.

HDFC Bank zoomed over 6% (Rs 69) to Rs 1,146. SBI rallied nearly 4% to Rs 1,220. ICICI Bank was up Rs 7 at Rs 888. The stock had touched a intra-day high of Rs 925.

Satyam surged 2.5% to Rs 438. HDFC moved up 1.6% to Rs 1,556. Wipro was up 1.2% at Rs 553.

Infosys, which slipped to a low of Rs 2,154, saw some last-minute buying, but closed with a loss of over 1% (Rs 29) at Rs 2,194.

Ranbaxy dropped 1.5% to Rs 397. ONGC, Maruti, Reliance Communications, Tata Motors, Hero Honda and Hindalco declined over 1% each.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

Gujarat Ambuja topped both the value and volume chart today.

The stock witnessed a turnover of Rs 708.25 crore followed by Tech Mahindra (Rs 306.15 crore), Mahindra Gesco (Rs 297.30 crore), Hindustan Zinc (Rs 192 crore) and ACC (Rs 176 crore).

A total of 5.17 crore shares changed hands at the Gujarat Ambuja counter followed by IDFC (1.10 crore), Silverline (67.25 lakh), IFCI (48.45 lakh) and Nandan Exim (40.20 lakh).