Markets end on a firm note

The markets after a sedate start gained strength in the second half of the trading day on the back of selective buying. The Sensex opened flat at 16,042, and touched a low of 16,021 in early trades. Steady buying in select heavyweights like Hindustan Unilever, Tata Steel and ICICI Bank helped the index move up.

Some short covering towards the end saw the Sensex jump to a high of 16,310. The index finally ended with a gain of 188 points (1.2%) at 16,227. The NSE Nifty settled 54 points higher at 4,856.

The BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap space underperformed with gains of 0.6% and 0.5% each at 6,514 and 8,318, respectively.

The market breadth was positive - out of 2,881 stocks traded so far, 1,559 advanced and 1,243 declined today.

Index movers...

ACC surged over 4% to Rs 914 and was the top gainer among the Sensex stocks.

Hindalco, Tata Motors and Hindustan Unilever rallied around 3% each. Jaiprakash Associates, Sterlite and Tata Steel gained 2.5% each.

DLF, Mahindra & Mahindra and ICICI Bank advanced 2% each.

HDFC, Reliance Communications, Maruti, Infosys and Wipro were the other major gainers.

...and the shakers

Bharti Airtel was down significantly for the second straight day, after the company announced its bid for Zain's African assets. The stock shed 4.5% at Rs 272, and has dropped nearly 14% in the last two trading days. Last time, the stock saw such intense selling was when the company called off the MTN deal.

HDFC Bank and Hero Honda were the only other losers among the index stocks.

Value & volume toppers

Bharti Airtel topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 226.46 crore followed by Bajaj Auto (Rs 167.89 crore), OCL Iron & Steel (Rs 144 crore), Tata Steel (Rs 92.65 crore) and Reliance (Rs 86.94 crore).

OCL Iron & Steel led the volume chart with trades of around 68.57 million shares followed by Himachal Futuristic (11.16 million), Shree Ashtavinayaka (10.23 million), Bharti Airtel (8.21 million) and Syncom Healthcare (7.84 million).