<b>SOLID RALLY</b>: Sensex ends above 19K

The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 53 points at 18,824. Nervousness in opening trades following Sebi's norms on P-notes saw the index slip to a low of 18,630.

The index, however, recovered soon, and unabated buying thereafter saw the index rally past the 19,000-mark to an all-time intra-day high of 19,276 - up 646 points from the day's low.

The Sensex finally ended with a significant gain of 2.5% (472 points) at 19,243. Thanks to the unexpected rally, the index finished with the highest-ever weekly gain of 9.6% (1,683 points).

The BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap indices gained around 2% each at 7921 and 9551, respectively.

The market breadth was fairly positive - out of 2,833 stocks traded, 1,737 advanced, 1,029 declined and 67 were unchanged today.

INDEX MOVERS...

Larsen & Toubro zoomed over 12% to Rs 3,877. SBI soared over 7% to Rs 2,084, and BHEL surged over 6% to Rs 2,432.

Mahindra & Mahindra and ONGC rallied 3.8% each to Rs 802 and Rs 1,156, respectively.

ICICI Bank and Satyam advanced over 3% each to Rs 1,184 and Rs 475, respectively. NTPC and Reliance added 2.5% each to Rs 229 and Rs 2,692, respectively.

Tata Motors, Maruti, Reliance Communications and TCS moved up around 2% each to Rs 810, Rs 1,181, Rs 765 and Rs 1,070, respectively.

Grasim, ACC and HDFC were the other major gainers at Rs 3,773, Rs 1,079 and Rs 2,566, respectively.

...AND THE SHAKERS

Bharti Airtel dropped 2.5% to Rs 993. Hindustan Unilever slipped 1.3% to Rs 218.

Ambuja Cements, ITC, Ranbaxy and Cipla were down around 1% each at Rs 144, Rs 181, Rs 425 and Rs 185, respectively.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

Larsen & Toubro topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 433.50 crore followed by Reliance Petroleum (Rs 405 crore), Reliance (Rs 363.20 crore), Reliance Natural Resources (Rs 272.65 crore) and Reliance Energy (Rs 266 crore).

Reliance Natural Resources led the volume chart with trades of around 2.76 crore shares followed by Himachal Futuristic (2.06 crore), Reliance Petroleum (2.04 crore), Tata Teleservices (1.58 crore) and Power Grid (1.47 crore).