Sensex zooms 117pts, ONGC soars 5%

India won the cricket match in South Africa, and the Sensex hit a ton!

Unlike the steady show by Dravid & Team India, the market had another day of volatile swings today. The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 81 points at 13,696. After advancing over 100 points, the index plunged to a low of 13,416.

The slide stopped, thanks to steady buying in ONGC and Ranbaxy. As the buying spread to other stocks, the index rallied to a high of 13,744 - up 328 points from the day's low. The Sensex finally settled with a gain of 117 points at 13,731.

The BSE Oil & Gas index surged 3% to 6151. The Auto and Healthcare indices were up 1% each at 5317 and 3739, respectively.

The market breadth was marginally positive - out of 2,617 stocks traded, 1,320 advanced, 1,223 declined and the rest were unchanged today.

INDEX MOVERS & SHAKERS

ONGC surged 4.7% (Rs 38) to Rs 855. Ranbaxy flared up 4.3% to Rs 391.

Tata Motors rallied 3.6% to Rs 889. Wipro, Reliance and Hero Honda advanced around 3% each to Rs 582, Rs 1,289 and Rs 750, respectively.

TCS gained over 2% to Rs 1,182. Tata Steel, ICICI Bank and Maruti were up 1.7% each at Rs 467, Rs 885 and Rs 920, respectively.

BHEL slipped over 4% (Rs 105) to Rs 2,391.

NTPC shed 1.7% to Rs 141, and Reliance Energy dropped 1.3% to Rs 533.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

i-Flex topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 128.65 crore followed by Reliance Communications (Rs 119.40 crore), SBI (Rs 105.85 crore), Reliance (Rs 102.80 crore) and Tech Mahindra (Rs 91.90 crore).

Teledata led the volume chart with trades of around 54.50 lakh shares followed by Daawat (54.15 lakh), Zee Tele (34.48 lakh), Lanco Infratech (26.55 lakh) and Sterling Biotech (26.50 lakh).