Sensex up 85pts at 9550, UTI Bk drops 7%

After opening with a positive gap of 38 points at 9503, the Sensex did not stop to look back today. Aggressive buying in select stocks saw the index zoom to a high of 9574. The Sensex finally closed with a gain of 0.9% (85 points) at 9550.

The BSE Capital Goods index surged 3% to 6515. The BSE Auto, Teck and FMCG indices gained over 1% each at 4372, 2405 and 1710, respectively. The BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices also finished in positive zones.

Gainers were ahead of losers - out of 2,589 stocks traded, 1,424 moved up, 1,096 declined and the rest were unchanged today.

Maruti soared 4.6% to Rs 743. Tata Motors rallied 3% to Rs 664. While Bajaj Auto advanced 1.2% to Rs 2,073, Hero Honda closed flat at Rs 838.

Infosys advanced 2.6% to Rs 2,819. TCS gained 1.3% to Rs 1,642, and Satyam moved up nearly 1% to Rs 733. Wipro was unmoved at Rs 493.

While ITC surged 1.8% to Rs 155, HLL ended almost unchanged at Rs 188.

Reliance declined over 1% to Rs 693. ONGC shed 0.7% to Rs 1,247.

Ranbaxy gained 2.7% to Rs 387, and Dr.Reddy's added 1.3% to Rs 1,043. Cipla, however, slipped over 2% to end at Rs 432.

Tata Steel moved up 1.8% to Rs 364. ACC, Bharti Tele, Grasim, HDFC and NTPC finished with gains of 1% each.

The BSE Bankex slipped a notch (0.2%) to 5082, and bank stocks finished on a mixed note after the RBI hiked repo and reverse repo rates by 25bps in its Q3 monetary policy review today.

Union Bank advanced 2% to Rs 125. Allahabad Bank, Centurion Bank of Punjab, Punjab National Bank and Vijaya Bank moved up 1% each.

UTI Bank plunged over 7% to Rs 341. IOB slipped nearly 2% to Rs 112. Karnataka Bank and Oriental Bank of Commerce were down over 1% each. Andhra Bank, BoB, Canara Bank, BoI, HDFC Bank, Kotak Bank and SBI ended flat with a negative bias.

Capital goods stocks were on fire today. ABB and Thermax soared over 8% each to Rs 2,485 and Rs 1,171, respectively. Kirloskar Brothers zoomed 7.5% to Rs 309. Larsen & Toubro surged over 4% to Rs 1,943. BHEL added 2.3% to Rs 1,639. Alfa Laval, Areva, BEML, Bharat Electricals, Carborandum Universal and KEC International gained 2-5% each.

Reliance topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 258.79 crore followed by PBA Infrastructure (Rs 144.87 crore), Maruti (Rs 105.89 crore), Tulip IT (Rs 88.03 crore) and SBI (Rs 78.49 crore).

PBA Infrastructure topped the volume chart with trades of around 82.73 lakh shares followed by Southern Biotech (71.35 lakh), Aftek (46.30 lakh), Radha Madhav (44.39 lakh) and Tulip IT (40.45 lakh).