Sensex zooms 140pts; RCoVL ends Day 1 at Rs 291

Following the 395-point surge last week, the Sensex opened on a positive note at 10,617 - up 22 points. Sustained buying thereafter saw the index add gains as the day progressed.

The index touched a new, life-time intra-day high of 10,742 before closing with a huge gain of 1.3% (140 points) at 10,735.

The BSE Metal Index soared over 4% to 7926. The Midcap, Smallcap, Auto, PSU, Healthcare and OIL& Gas indices gained over 1% each at 4987, 6321, 5346, 5821, 3668 and 4545, respectively.

The market breadth was slightly positive. Out of 2,609 stocks traded, 1,451 advanced, 1,085 declined and 73 were unchanged today.

Debutant Reliance Communication Ventures, ONGC, Reliance, power and metal stocks witnessed hectic action today.

Reliance Comminication Ventures (RCoVL) made a dazzling debut today. Beating street expectations of Rs 250, the stock opened at Rs 290 and touched a high of Rs 309. The stock slipped to a low of Rs 277 before ending Day 1 at Rs 291.

Hindalco surged 5.6% to Rs 167. Tata Steel flared up 4.2% to Rs 473.

Tata Power soared 5.4% to Rs 576. NTPC gained 4% at Rs 136, and Reliance Energy added 3.3% to Rs 654.

Tata Motors and Ranbaxy rallied nearly 3% each to Rs 927 and Rs 447, respectively.

ITC (Rs 179), Reliance (Rs 732), Cipla (Rs 562) and ONGC (Rs 1,169) advanced over 2% each.

Bharti Tele and Maruti dropped 1% each to Rs 404 and Rs 919, respectively.

While 287 stocks hit their upper limits, 171 touched lower limits today.

Kalpataru Power hit the 20% upper limit at Rs 1,489 for the second sucessive session. Uttam Galva, Paper Products, Universal Cables, KEC Infrastructure, BOC India, Amara Raja Batteries, Mangalam Cement, Essar Steel, MRPL, Essel Propack, Jindal Steel, Ashok Leyland, National Aluminium, SAIL, TVS Motors and Pfizer were the other significant gainers today.

Nocil plunged 14.5% to Rs 21.80. Goodricke, Harrison Malyalam, McLeod Russel, Williamson Tea, Agro Dutch, Jayshree Tea, Crisil, Hinduja TMT, Asahi India, Kothari Products, Tamilnadu Newsprint, Kotak Bank, Hindustan Zinc, Ingersoll Rand, Jaiprakash Assoicates, ICI India and Mirc Electronics declined 2-5% each.

RCoVL topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 627.60 crore followed by Reliance (Rs 164.53 crore), Tata Motors (Rs 107.26 crore), Tata Steel (Rs 92.16 crore) and Maruti (Rs 83.08 crore).

RCoVL also led the volume chart with trades of around 2.18 crore shares followed by Reliance Energy Ventures (54 lakh), NTPC (50.67 lakh), Reliance Natural Resources (47.29 lakh) and KEC Infrastructure (41.96 lakh).