Sensex up 98 pts; ONGC zooms 4%

The Sensex opened firm with a 14 point gain over its last close at 6,701. While the market witnessed bullish trend throughout the trading session, frenzied buying across the board in late noon deals saw the index zoom to an all-time, intra-day high of 6,794.

The Sensex finally settled at a new closing high of 6,785 - a gain of 98 points. The Nifty, too, rallied sharply to end at a new high of 2,129 - up 36 points.

While 27 Sensex stocks advanced, two declined and one ended unchanged today. Advancing shares accounted for a volume of 1.68 crore for Rs 817.32 crore, and declining shares clocked a volume of 12 lakh amounting to Rs 41.90 crore.

The breadth of the market was positive with 1,771 gainers, 652 losers and 61 stocks remaining unchanged.

ONGC, on reports of gas finds in Godavari basin, jumped 3.88% (Rs 33) to Rs 889. The counter registered a volume of over 15.55 lakh on the BSE.

Reliance, with a traded volume of over 22.27 lakh, advanced 1.76% (Rs 10) to Rs 558.

While HLL, on a volume of over 30 lakh, gained 2.49% (Rs 4) to Rs 150, ITC was up Rs 5 at Rs 1,345.

SBI, which clocked a volume of over 17.4 lakh, scaled up 1.59% (Rs 11) to Rs 717. While ICICI Bank logged 1.86% gains (Rs 7) to Rs 397, HDFC Bank was up a rupee at Rs 577.

Wipro spurted 3.87% (Rs 26) to Rs 697. While Infosys rose 1.62% (Rs 35) to Rs 2,218, Satyam ended steady with a gain of Rs 3 at Rs 400.

Bajaj rose 3.81% (Rs 40) to Rs 1,084, and Hero Honda moved up 2.41% (Rs 13) to Rs 564. While Tata Motors flared up 3.31% (Rs 15) to Rs 479, Maruti jumped 2.41% (Rs 11) to Rs 474.

Grasim added 1.14% (Rs 15) to Rs 1,361. Gujarat Ambuja and ACC were up a per cent each at Rs 446 and Rs 372, respectively.

Ranbaxy surged 1.73% (Rs 17) to Rs 1,018. While Cipla added 3.95% (Rs 10) to Rs 268, Dr. Reddy's ended flat at Rs 722.

Reliance Energy was up a per cent (Rs 6) at Rs 557, while Tata Power added 1.42% (Rs 6) to Rs 403. L&T, however, declined 1.19% (Rs 13) to Rs 1,100.

ONGC topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 137 crore followed by Reliance (Rs 124 crore), SBI (Rs 121 crore) and Satyam (Rs 82 crore), respectively.