Sensex up 3pts, Reliance zooms 6%

The Sensex opened with a small positive gap of seven points at 9,318. Heavy buying in Reliance and other heavyweights saw the index move up to a high of 9,421 in late morning deals.

Profit-taking at higher levels saw the index drift into negative zone by the closing bell, and touched a low of 9,289 - an intra-day swing of 132 points. The Sensex finally closed with a marginal gain of three points at 9,314.

The BSE Oil & Gas Index zoomed nearly 3% (129 points) to 4,556. The BSE Consumer Durables Index was up marginally to 3,146.

All the other sectoral indices declined today. The BSE Metal Index dropped 1.3% (82 points) to 6,428. The BSE PSU Index was down over 1% (61 points) to 5,454. The BSE Teck Index dropped 0.9% (21 points) to 2,360.

Declines were ahead of advances 2:1 - out of 2,582 scrips traded, 1,690 declined, 835 advanced and 57 were unchanged today.

It was Reliance all the way today. The stock zoomed to an all-time high of Rs 937.50, and closed with a gain of over 6% (Rs 55) at Rs 928. The counter logged a huge volume of 1.57 crore shares and a turnover of Rs 1,437 crore.

TCS moved up Rs 15 to Rs 1,623. While L&T added Rs 18 to Rs 1,861, HDFC Bank was up Rs 9 at Rs 748.

Wipro slipped over 2% (Rs 11) to Rs 449. Infosys was down Rs 18 at Rs 2,762.

Tata Motors dropped 2% (Rs 13) to Rs 629. Bajaj declined 1% (Rs 19) to Rs 1,999. While Maruti slipped Rs 7 to Rs 651, Hero Honda was down Rs 4 at Rs 834.

SBI declined Rs 11 to Rs 907. ICICI Bank was down Rs 8 at Rs 565.

Tata Steel was down over 2% (Rs 8) at Rs 348. NTPC, ACC, BHEL, Ranbaxy, Dr. Reddy's, Cipla, ITC and HDFC also declined today.

Hindustan Zinc advanced 6% (Rs 18) to Rs 336. Sterlite gained 3% (Rs 36) to Rs 1,327. Engineers India, Merck, Federal Bank and Geometric finished with gains of 2% each.

Sugar stocks continued to log gains. Mawana Sugar zoomed 6% to Rs 130. Rajashree Sugar gained 5% to Rs 129. Bajaj Hindustan moved up over 5% to Rs 362. Balrampur Chini, EID Parry and Dhampur Sugar also finished with gains.

Bank scrips declined today. IndusInd Bank slipped nearly 5% to Rs 54. Vijaya Bank declined 3.5% to Rs 61. Allahabad Bank, Andhra Bank, BoB, BoI, Canara Bank and OBC also declined.

Reliance was the most active counter with a turnover of Rs 1,437 crore followed by Educomp Solutions (Rs 148 crore), SBI (Rs 74 crore), HDFC (Rs 60 crore) and Infosys (Rs 52 crore).