Sensex zooms 165pts, closing in on Peak 12612

The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 59 points at 12,168, and did not bother to look back today. Steady buying saw the index move in a narrow range of 30-40 points for most part of the session.

Buying gained momentum in the late noon deals, and the index soared to a high of 12,286. The Sensex finally settled with a smart gain of 165 points at 12,274.

The index is now just 338 points away from its historic closing high of 12,612.

The BSE FMCG Index surged 2% to 2084, and the Bankex advanced 1.6% to 5735. The Auto, IT, Metal and Oil & Gas indices were up over 1% each at 5226, 4434, 8218 and 5751, respectively.

The market breadth was positive - out of 2,584 stocks traded, 1,372 advanced, 1,138 declined and the rest were unchanged today.

INDEX MOVERS & SHAKERS

Bajaj Auto rallied 3.7% to Rs 2,896. HLL surged 3.4% to Rs 259.

BHEL and HDFC advanced 2.7% each to Rs 2,314 and Rs 1,407, respectively. TCS added 2.5% to Rs 1,053.

ACC, ONGC, ITC, ICICI Bank and Gujarat Ambuja gained around 2% each to Rs 969, Rs 1,197, Rs 191, Rs 664 and Rs 116, respectively.

Satyam and Maruti surged nearly 2% each to Rs 860 and Rs 945, respectively. Reliance Energy, Cipla and Hindalco moved up 1.5% each to Rs 468, Rs 260 and Rs 170, respectively.

Tata Steel, Ranbaxy, Wipro, HDFC Bank, Grasim and Reliance ended with a gain of around 1% each.

Hero Honda, Reliance Communications and Larsen & Toubro were the only losers among the index stocks today.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

Indiabulls topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 222.70 crore followed by Reliance (Rs 148.80 crore), Voltamp Transformers (Rs 121.30 crore), Reliance Communications (Rs 81.34 crore) and Bombay Dyeing (Rs 80.20 crore).

Tata Teleservices led the volume chart with trades of around 81.47 lakh shares followed by Dewan Housing 74.32 lakh, Indiabulls (52 lakh), Amforge Industries (30.18 lakh) and Voltamp (28 lakh).