Sensex up 75 pts, HMT zooms 22%

The Sensex opened on a bullish note above the 7,300-mark at 7,326 - up 54 points. Although tech stocks attracted strong buying support since early trades, steady buying in other sectors saw the index move in a range of 7,320 and 7,330 till mid-noon trades.

Sentiment perked up towards the closing bell as broad-based rally propelled the index to a new intra-day high of 7,360.

The Sensex finally closed with a gain of 75 points at 7,347.

While 23 Sensex stocks advanced, seven declined today. Advancing shares accounted for a volume of 81 lakh amounting to Rs 390.91 crore, and declining shares registered a volume of 94 lakh for Rs 632.72 crore.

All the sectoral indices closed with gains today. The BSE Teck index was up 2.5% at 1,896. The BSE SmallCap Index moved up over 2% to 4,925. The BSE Oil & Gas Index, however, was down marginally at 3,379.

Advances trounced declines nearly 3:1 - out of 2,576 scrips traded, 1,916 advanced, 612 declined and 48 were unchanged today.

TCS, on strong Q1 earnings report announced on Friday, vaulted 5.83% (Rs 73) to Rs 1,321. Infosys scaled up 3.50% (Rs 77) to Rs 2,272. While Satyam shot up 3.28% (Rs 16) to Rs 497, Wipro was up a per cent (Rs 7) at Rs 710.

Reliance Energy jumped 3.73% (Rs 24) to Rs 657. HLL gained 2.27% (Rs 4) to Rs 160.

Hero Honda, which reported a 7.56% rise in Q1 net, flared up 4.17% (Rs 26) to Rs 654. While Bajaj moved up 2.74% (Rs 38) to Rs 1,421, Tata Motors was up a per cent (Rs 3) at Rs 467.

Ranbaxy was up 1.47% (Rs 15) at Rs 1,051. Dr. Reddy's and Cipla ended with steady gains at Rs 759 and Rs 333, respectively.

ICICI Bank was up a per cent (Rs 3) at Rs 444. While HDFC Bank ended marginally lower at Rs 627, SBI was down a rupee at Rs 717.

ITC dropped 1.78% (Rs 31) to Rs 1,737. ONGC and Reliance lost a per cent each to Rs 917 (down Rs 10) and Rs 661 (down Rs 5), respectively.

Select PSU scrips were in limelight today. HMT zoomed 22% to Rs 71. RCF jumped 16% to Rs 46. FACT advanced over 11% to Rs 34. MRPL, National Fertilisers and Chennai Petroleum ended on a firm note.

Tata Infotech, which is being merged with TCS in a swap ratio of 2:1, gained 5% to Rs 639.

ITI topped the volume chart with trades in over 1.56 crore shares followed by Zigma Software (1.24 crore), Reliance (80 lakh shares) and RCF (70 lakh shares).

Reliance was the most active counter with a turnover of over Rs 529 crore followed by Reliance Capital (Rs 166 crore) and ITI (Rs 117 crore).