Sensex up 47 pts, tech stocks ride high

The Sensex resumed with a solid gain of 31 points at 6,330 over its previous close and immediately shot up to a high of 6,374, as tech stocks led the early rally on the back of impressive quarterly numbers announced by Wipro.

The market, however, soon came close to slip below the yesterday's close as weakness in most of the counters dragged the index to a low of 6,302. Steady recovery in most of the counters coupled with a firm tech rally since the early trades saw the Sensex hover around 40-50 points gains therafter.

The Sensex finally signed off the session with a gain of 47 points at 6,346. The Nifty, too, after a strong early upsurge, displayed a range-bound trend for better part of the trading session and ended 18 points higher at 1,967.

Wipro, on strong Q4 and FY05 numbers, vaulted 6.33% (Rs 38) to Rs 644. The counter registered a volume of over 10.6 lakh. Infosys, which clocked a volume of over 3.53 lakh, flared up 2.77% (Rs 54) to Rs 1,998. Satyam gained 2.14% (Rs 8) to Rs 405, with a volume of over 14.59 lakh.

Reliance, on a volume of over 21.41 lakh, clocked a per cent gain (Rs 4) to Rs 547. ONGC and HLL ended with steady gains at Rs 854 (up Rs 3) and Rs 132 (up a rupee), respectively. ITC, however, lost a per cent (Rs 9) to Rs 1,390.

L&T rose 2% (Rs 20) to Rs 993, while BHEL added 1.51% (Rs 12) to Rs 808. Tisco, however, lost nearly 2% (Rs 7) to Rs 362. Over 22.21 lakh Tisco shares changed hands on the BSE.

ICICI Bank moved up 3% (Rs 12) to Rs 396. While SBI declined 1.21% (Rs 8) to Rs 621, HDFC Bank shed 1.26% (Rs 7) to Rs 539.

ACC gained 1.21% (Rs 4) to Rs 376, and Gujarat Ambuja was up a per cent (Rs 3) at Rs 434. Grasim, however, ended a per cent lower (Rs 11) at Rs 1,199.

Ranbaxy dropped 1.97% (Rs 19) to Rs 925, and Dr. Reddy's slipped 1.22% (Rs 8) to Rs 682. Cipla, however, was up 1.31% (Rs 3) at Rs 244.

While Maruti added 1.36% (Rs 6) to Rs 439, Bajaj ended flat at Rs 1,080. Hero Honda declined 1.80% (Rs 9) to Rs 506, and Tata Motors was down a rupee at Rs 437.

Among other tech stocks HCL Tech shot up 5.60% (Rs 20) to Rs 370, while Hexaware rose 5.35% (Rs 37) to Rs 720. Ramco System, KPIT Cummins, Hinduja TMT, Geometric Software, TCS, NIIT and Sonata Software ended higher in a range of 2-5%.

Gujarat Gas, on strong Q1 numbers, spurted 12.44% (Rs 102) to Rs 918, while CESC advanced 9.25% (Rs 17) to Rs 198.

The sectoral indices table was led by BSE IT (up 2.91% to 2,458), followed by BSE CD (up 2.60% to 1,623) and BSE Teck (up 2.30% to 1,608)38 pts) at 1,608, respectively.

Reliance led the value chart with a turnover of Rs 116 crore, followed by SBI (Rs 91 crore), Tisco (Rs 80 crore), Infosys (Rs 70 crore) and Wipro (Rs 65 crore), respectively.