Volatile Sensex gains 124pts; BHEL, HDFC rally

The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 55 points at 10,672. Continued buying saw the index rally to higher levels as the day progressed.

Poor Q1 numbers from SBI triggered some-profit taking in noon deals, and the index slipped to a low of 10,590. Huge short-covering owing to the July derivatives expiry today saw the index bounce back soon, and zoom to a high of 10,763 - up 173 points from the day's low. The Sensex finally ended with a gain of 124 points at 10,742.

The BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap indices were also up over 1% each at 4229 and 5029, respectively.

The market breadth was fairly positive - out of 2,483 stocks traded, 1,450 advanced, 951 declined and 82 were unchanged today.

INDEX MOVERS & SHAKERS

BHEL and HDFC zoomed 5% each to Rs 1,952 and Rs 1,190, respectively. ONGC surged nearly 4% to Rs 1,182.

Bharti Airtel and Dr.Reddy's rallied 3.3% each to Rs 396 and Rs 1,367, respectively. Wipro and Bajaj Auto advanced 3% each to Rs 490 and Rs 2,571, respectively.

NTPC added 2.6% to Rs 115. Grasim, Hindalco, Maruti and Larsen & Toubro were up over 2% each at Rs 2,074, Rs 166, Rs 781 and Rs 2,199, respectively.

HLL gained nearly 2% at Rs 245. Cipla, Tata Motors and SBI were the other prominent gainers today.

Hero Honda and Ranbaxy slipped 1.5% each to Rs 692 and Rs 366, respectively.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

SBI topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 199.32 crore followed by Reliance (Rs 166.62 crore), Tata Steel (Rs 87.10 crore), Reliance Capital (Rs 79.89 crore) and Suzlon (Rs 71.05 crore).

G V Films led the volume chart with trades of around 60.13 lakh shares followed by Hindustan Construction (59.80 lakh), SBI (26.69 lakh), IFCI (25.07 lakh) and Visu International (22.65 lakh).